ESPE Abstracts

Background: Disorders of sex development (DSD) are those congenital conditions in which development of chromosomal, gonadal, or anatomical sex is atypical. 45,X/46,XY mosaicism results in a large clinical spectrum of DSD including from female patients with Turner’s syndrome to normal appearing males.Objective and hypotheses: The main aim of this study is to review the clinical and gonad histological findings in a cohort of chromosomal DSD patients f...

Disorders/differences in sex development (DSD) are defined as congenital conditions in which development of chromosomal, gonadal or anatomical sex is atypical. 46,XY DSD include defects in androgen synthesis or action or complete (CGD)/partial (PGD) gonadal dysgenesis. The aim of this study was to characterize the molecular genetic diagnosis of individuals with 46,XY DSD followed at Garrahan Pediatric Hospital.Medical records of 140 patients (P) followed...

Sex chromosome disorders, including sex chromosome mosaicism, result in a large clinical spectrum. There is scarce information about the histological pattern of these gonads.Aim: to characterize the histology and cell markers pattern in gonads of patients with chromosomal mosaicism.Gonadal biopsies from thirteen patients with chromosomal mosaicism, including chromosome Y were studied. Six were rearing as male and s...

Background: Aromatase deficiency is a rare autosomal recessive disorder produced by CYP19 gene mutations. 46XX affected patients presented with ambiguous genitalia leading to early identification. Most 46XY affected patients presented normal external genitalia and the condition often remains undiagnosed until late puberty. Information on pubertal development in affected boys is scarce since to the present date only two patients, younger than 4 years of age, without lo...

Background: Congenital growth hormone deficiency may be isolated (IGHD) or multiple pituitary hormone deficiency (MPHD). The Sonic Hedgehog signalling (SHH) pathway has an important role in the pituitary development and growth, acting early in ventral forebrain. The SHH signalling mediates its effects through three zinc fingers proteins (Gli1, Gli2 and Gli3), which lead to activation or repression of target genes. Several heterozygous GLI2 mutations have been reported in patie...

Disorders of sex development (DSD) are those congenital conditions in which development of chromosomal, gonadal, or anatomical sex is atypical. The aim of this study was to characterize the histology of 46,XX DSD prepubertal gonads. We studied 25 gonads of fourteen 46,XX DSD patients. The age of biopsy/gonadectomy was 1.17 (0.08–4.17) years (median and range). Molecular studies confirmed the absence of SRY by PCR and/or MLPA in blood samples of all patients and i...

Background: Carriers of germline DICER1 mutations are predisposed to a rare cancer syndrome, the DICER1 syndrome, associated with tumors such as pleuropulmonary blastoma (PPB), ovarian Sertoli-Leydig cell tumors (SLCT), multinodular goiter (MNG), cystic nephroma (CN), embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma (ERMS) or primitive neuroectodermic tumor. DICER1 is involved in the generation of microRNAs (miRNAs), short, double-stranded, non-coding RNAs that modulate gene expression at ...

Background: IGF1R gene mutations have been associated with varying degrees of intrauterine and postnatal growth retardation, and microcephaly. We have previously reported three novel variants in the IGF1R gene: de novo p.Arg1256Ser, de novo p.Asn359Tyr and p.Tyr865Cys (ENDO 2013, OR20-2).Aim: To characterize the functional effects of the novel IGF1R gene allelic variants.Methods: In ...

Background: Aortic dilation (AD) occurs in Turner syndrome (TS) increasing the risk of aortic dissection at all ages. There are no current guidelines on what specific aortic diameter measurement should provoke concern in pediatric TS. Because of their small stature, an aortic size index (ASI) has been proposed to normalize the ascending aorta (AA) to body size in young adults’ with TS. However, a more reliable index has been also proposed: the ratio of vascular diameter t...

Background: RARβ cooperates with Nur77 to in-vitro regulate HSD3B2 transcription. NUR77 expression parallels HSD3B2 expression with a much lower level in androgen-producing adrenocortical tissues (childhood virilizing adrenocortical tumours (VAT), fetal zone (FeZ) and zona reticularis, ZR). RARβ is down-regulated in starved, hyperandrogenic H295R cells. However, the mechanisms regulating this expression pattern and the relevance of RARβ to huma...