ESPE Abstracts

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD),which represents the leading cause of hepatic damage worldwide,is modulated by epigenetic factors, in particular microRNAs (miRNAs), which control at post-transcriptional level many complementary target mRNA. However, the evidence for this is inconsistent. The high stability and expression of circulating exosomal miRNAs may allow their use as candidate biomarkers. For the discovery phase,exosomes were isolated from the serum of patients...

Background: The incidence of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in children increased rapidly paralleled with the global burden of obesity and diabetes. Although most patients are nonalcoholic fatty liver (NAFL), once progress to nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), the risk of liver fibrosis and cirrhosis increase significantly. However, the pathogenesis of NAFLD, especially how NAFL progress to NASH is still unclear. Exosomal miRNAs have attracted att...

Background: Accelerated catch-up growth following intrauterine growth restriction increases the risk of developing visceral adiposity and metabolic syndrome. Animal models of growth restriction during gestation have been developed as a powerful tool to provide insight into the underlying molecular mechanisms thereof.Objective: To analyze the patterns of gene expression in the retroperitoneal adipose tissue of rats with i...

Background and Aim: Germline mutations in the tumor suppressor gene PTEN cause PTEN Hamartoma Tumor Syndrome (PHTS). Pediatric patients frequently develop lipomas. PTEN antagonizes the growth promoting PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway. There is no current treatment option except surgery. Treatment attempts with the mTORC1 inhibitor Rapamycin could not reverse lipoma growth. Recently, lipomas associated with a related syndrome caused by mosaic activating PI3K mutations (P...

Growth differentiation factor 5 (GDF5) was reported to regulate brown adipogenesis, however, its effects on insulin sensitivity, full metabolic syndrome spectrum and the thermogenesis in subcutaneous white adipose tissue (sWAT) haven't been elucidated yet. We thus generated fatty acid-binding protein 4 (Fabp4)-GDF5 transgenic mice and showed that GDF5 transgenic mice developed a relative lean phenotype on a high-fat diet (HFD) and showed increased insulin sensitivity. Over...

Few treatments for type 2 diabetes (T2D) and obesity achieve meaningful long-term weight-loss and are often accompanied by nausea and vomiting. Thus, there is a critical need for a new generation of obesity medications that provide glycemic control with enhanced hypophagic response without nausea. Our group has developed and tested two new monomeric chimeric peptides against a novel target for obesity treatment concomitant with T2D in the form of dual agonism of the anorectic ...