ESPE Yearbook of Paediatric Endocrinology

To read the full abstract: Cell Metabolism 2018;27:854-868. e8People gain weight due to treatment with glucocorticoid (GC) drugs, but also in chronic stress and disrupted circadian rhythms. We now learn that fat-cell maturation increases if the trough in exposure to GC lasts less than 12 hours. A long pulse of glucocorticoids lasting 48 hours led most of the cells to differentiate under the ...

In Brief: Growth plate and articular cartilage have similar structures composed of distinct chondrocyte layers but they differ substantially with respect to their function and fate. This study combines transplantation experiments with cell tracing in rat with in vitrostudies to identify a novel mechanism by which synoviocytes act directly on chondrocytes to suppress endochondral and promote articular cartilage at the joint surface.Commentary: Gr...

Brief summary: The authors used data from the Global Burden of Disease 2019 to examine the incidence, disability adjusted life years and mortality of early onset type 2 diabetes T2D) in those 15–39 years of age. This showed that early onset T2D is a growing global health problem in adolescents and young adults, particularly in low-middle- and middle-income countries.Early onset of type 2 diabetes (T2D) is associated with longer lifetime exposure hyp...

In Brief: These authors investigated patients referred to the UK National Prion Clinic (NPC) for suspected prion diseases. They identified 8 individuals with a history of receiving treatment with cadaveric pituitary-derived growth hormone (c-hGH) and referred to, or reviewed by, the NPC between 2017 and 2022. None had a diagnosis of iatrogenic Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (CJD) (on the basis of clinical presentation, neuroimaging and biomarkers and, in two cases, by postmort...

In Brief: The authors harness large-scale genetic and DNA methylation datasets in an epigenome-wide Mendelian randomization approach, to identify CpG sites that appear to be causally related to aging-related traits. These sites are collated to produce 2 epigenetic clocks: DamAge has adverse impacts on age-related outcomes, including mortality. AdaptAge appears to confer beneficial adaptations.Steve Horvath and others originally described various epigenet...

Brief summary: Using in-depth multi-omics analyses of human type 1 diabetes (T1D) samples, the authors profiled gut microbial functional and metabolic alterations. The T1D microbiota showed decreased butyrate production and bile acid metabolism and increased lipopolysaccharide (LPS) biosynthesis. Fecal microbiota transplantation in animal models proved that T1D gut microflora is a causative factor in the regulation of glucose metabolism.The etiology of T...

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. 2021 Jun 7;12(1):3355. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-23661-4.This study describes the interaction of individual genetic variation for autoimmune thyroid disease with risk of thyroid immune related adverse events (irAE) during or after immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) treatment for advanced cancer.ICIs are monoclonal antibodies blocking T-cell exhaustion and...

Cell Stem Cell. 2021 Sep 2;28(9):1657-1670.e10. doi: 10.1016/j.stem.2021.04.006. PMID: 33961804.Brief Summary: The authors established a novel protocol to generate hypothalamic arcuate organoids from human induced pluripotent stem cells, which could be utilized to investigate the arcuate nuclei development and the underlying mechanism of arcuate nucleus-related diseases. <p class="abst...

To read the full abstract: J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2020 Mar 1;105(3):dgaa037.This study aimed to assess the frequency of natriuretic peptide receptor type B gene (NPR2 ) variants in 87 children with familial short stature (FSS) and evaluate their response to GH therapy. By applying whole-exome or custom-targeted NGS panel sequencing, NPR2 variants were found in 5 children (5.7%) belonging to 4 families. These variants were cla...