ESPE Yearbook of Paediatric Endocrinology

In brief: This basic research article provides new insights into osteocyte-transcortical vessel interactions and potentially opens up new therapeutic perspectives for bone diseases associated with vascular damage.Commentary: The bone vascular system has been shown to play a critical role in controlling bone development and wound healing and provides a microenvironment for the differentiation and maturation of haematopoietic and immune cells in bone marro...

Brief Summary: this retrospective study describes clinical and biochemical parameters which, using the principal component analysis, help in the differential diagnosis between idiopathic central precocious puberty (ICPP) and premature thelarche (PT).Breast development in girls before 8 years of age may be related to progressive CPP but can sometimes simply be the consequence of premature thelarche without activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal ...

To read the full abstract: Nat Med. 2019 Mar;25(3):439–447.Prenatal screening for trisomy 21, trisomy 18, trisomy 13, and sex chromosome aneuploidies can be performed using next-generation sequencing of cell-free DNA (cfDNA) in the maternal circulation. This article describes a new non-invasive prenatal screening (NIPS) approach for the detection of de novo or paternally inheri...

Brief summary: In this experimental study, genome editing and in vitro pancreatic differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells (SC) were used to generate ZNT8 loss-of-function (LOF) SC-β-cells. These cells showed accelerated functional maturation, increased insulin secretion and improved resistance to metabolic stress. Transplantation of ZnT8 LOF SC-β-cells into mice with preexisting diabetes significantly improved their glucose levels.<...

Nat Commun. 2020 Aug 13;11(1):4063. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-17890-2. PMID: 32792525.These researchers proposed the heterogeneity of hypothalamic neural progenitor cells. Other than traditional hypothalamic radial glial (hRG) cells, which are predominantly located in the ventricular zone, there are additional basal progenitors in the mantle zone, which are named as hypothalamic mantle zo...

Nat Commun. 2020;11:4807. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-18497-3.This interesting paper illustrates the potential of machine learning to improve the sensitivity and specificity of routine techniques in clinical practice if large cohorts for training and validation of models are used. Yu et al. present a transfer learning model (machine learning approach to solve research problems by r...

Hum Mol Genet. 2020 Aug 3;29(13):2148–2161. doi: doi:10.1093/hmg/ddaa100. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32452519This study explores the hitherto unknown role of FGF9 in human testis development. The authors use two mouse models that phenocopy the skeletal defects of dominant FGF9 mutations that cause skelet...

Lancet Healthy Longevity 2021 10.1016/S2666-7568(21)00086-6.In brief: Using a multivariable Mendelian randomization approach, genetic data on lipoprotein lipid levels and disease outcomes indicated that higher Apolipoprotein B (ApoB) levels increase the risks of coronary heart disease, stroke and T2DM, and shorten longevity. ApoB is emerging as a more sensitive measure of disease r...

J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2021 Jul 13;106(8):2279-2290. doi: 10.1210/clinem/dgab331. PMID: 33982055.Brief Summary: This prospective birth cohort study assessed the impact of maternal glycaemia on infant neurodevelopment at 12 months of age. Maternal glucose levels during pregnancy were associated with infant neurodevelopmental outcomes.High maternal blood glucose levels m...

J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2021 Oct 21;106(11):e4520-e4530. doi: 10.1210/clinem/dgab448. Erratum in: J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2021 Nov 15;: PMID: 34160619https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/106/11/e4520/6308284Brief Summary: This cross-sectional study of 355 girls with Central Precocious Puberty (CPP) evaluates t...