ESPE Yearbook of Paediatric Endocrinology

Brief Summary: This review summarizes the role of macronutrients and hormones which regulate energy balance and sexual maturation by conveying energy availability information to the GnRH system.30 years ago, Kennedy and Mitra were the first to use translational studies to show that nutrition is a key factor regulating puberty timing1. Their seminal protocol modified the size of rat litters to affect weight increase and showed that nutritional ...

To read the full abstract: Nature communications vol. 11,1 1536. 24 Mar. 2020. doi: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-14451-5This multi-trait genome-wide association study (GWAS) for male puberty timing identifies 76 independent signals for puberty timing and highlights relationships with natural hair colour and lifespan. The timing of puber...

To read the full abstract: Cell 2019;177 (3):59–-607.e9. PMID 31002796.A recent GWAS showed that the heritability of thinness was comparable to that of obesity (1). Some loci showed effects across the entire BMI distribution. This is also true for variants in MC4R. The present study analyzed data on ˜0.5 million people from UK Biobank, with a focus on 61 nonsynonymous var...

To read the full abstract: Science 2019;365:eaat7693.These authors performed a genome-wide association study on 493 001 participants of European-ancestry from the USA, UK, and Sweden to identify genes associated with sexual orientation. They found multiple loci implicated in same-sex sexual behavior indicating that, like other behavioral traits, non-heterosexual behavior is polygenic.As many as 4% to 10% of US individuals ...

To read the full abstract: Nat Commun. 2018 May. 17;9(1):1977.This population study reports 26 loci for ages at menarche and menopause in a Japanese population and demonstrates widespread differences in allele frequencies and effect estimates between Japanese and European variants.Over the past decade, genome-wide association study (GWAS) meta-analys...

Brief Summary: These authors performed exhaustive saturation genome editing (SGE) of BAP1 (BRCA1-associated protein 1), the disruption of which is linked to tumorigenesis and altered neurodevelopment. 18,108 unique variants were characterized, of which 6,196 were found to have abnormal functions. These were then used to evaluate phenotypic associations in the UK Biobank. BAP1 variants were also characterized in a large population-ascertained tumor collection,...

Brief Summary: This international cohort study of 404 patients identified rare likely damaging variants in the gene MECP2 in patients with central precocious puberty. Translational experiments showed that GnRH neurons in mice express Mecp2.Over the last few years, several studies have provided insight into the epigenetic regulation of the onset of puberty1-3. DNA methylation, histone post-translational modifications and non-c...

Brief Summary: this large patient cohort study identified an overrepresentation of functionally damaging variants in MC3R in individuals with constitutional delay of growth and puberty but not in patients with IHH.Melanocortin 3 receptor (MC3R) is a permissive signal expressed by hypothalamic kisspeptin-neurokinin B-dynorphin (KNDY) neurons. It activates puberty through the leptin-proopiomelanocortin pathway in response to nutritional signaling<...

Brief Summary: This exome-wide association study conducted in the UK Biobank cohort (n=454 787) and in two non-European cohorts, the Mexican MCPS cohort (n=141 046) and the Pakistani PGR cohort (n=37 800), identified a association between rare protein-truncating variants (PTVs) in the APBA1 and the BSN genes and adult-onset obesity, suggesting two new genes as possible causes for monogenic obesity. Rare PTVs in BSN were also associated with Type 2 di...