ESPE Abstracts

Background: Mammalian puberty is initiated by the pulsatile release of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) from hypothalamic neurons. Enhanced at puberty (Eap) 1 is a transcription factor within this regulatory network integrating exogenous and endogenous informations, e.g. weight. Recent studies indicate an epigenetic regulation of the pubertal process.Objective and hypotheses: This study investigates if overweight modifies epigenetic marks i...

Background: Gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH)-secretion is not only regulated by neuronal factors but also by astroglia cells via growth factors (transforming growth factor α (TGFα), neuregulin (NRG)), prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) and the erbB receptor family. Mutations of TGFα and erbB1 result in an impaired reproductive capacity. Mice show a characteristically skin phenotype with wavy hair and curly whiskers. The rat strain SPRD-Cu3 (curly) shows a sim...

Aim: To examine the prevalence of endocrine abnormalities and outcome in children and adolescents with Anorexia nervosa (AN).Methods: The study cohort consisted of 181 patients (age 14.6±1.9 years; 160 girls, 21 boys) with AN (n=137), atypical AN (n=6) and other eating disorders except of Bulimia (n=38) who were hospitalized between Jan 2010 and Feb 2013. Somatometric [body-mass-index (BMI), BMI-SDS] and endocrine parameters were a...

Background: Specific measurement of low serum / plasma concentrations of 17β-estradiol (E2) is important in pre-pubertal and pubertal children in routine paediatric endocrinology. However, there is still a gap in available reference intervals (RIs) for E2 in paediatrics. The study was partially funded by the German Ministry of Health, grant number 2519FSB503.Objective: First, we technically developed a highly sensit...

Background: The initiation of puberty is orchestrated by the augmentation in the secretion of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) from a few thousand neurons located in the hypothalamus. Recent findings identified that the neuroendocrine control of puberty is regulated by a network of transcriptional factors hierarchically organized, but this still remains not fully elucidated. Enhanced At Puberty 1 (EAP1) is one of the main regulators of pubertal onset and it is ex...

Introduction: Rege et al. (2018) demonstrated that 11-keto-testosterone (11KT) is the dominant androgen in girls during adrenarche. Claahsen-van der Grinten et al. (2022) proposed C19 oxysteroids as a potential parameter for therapeutic control in congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH). Turcu et al. (2016) observed a significant elevation in C19 oxysteroids in patients with 21-hydroxylase deficiency (21OHD). Currently, C-19 oxysteroids...

The activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis during the first six months of life in boys marks the period of “mini-puberty”. It is characterized by a surge of gonadotropins, testosterone, and an increase of Sertoli cells and germ cells, crucial for future reproductive capacity. Boys with severe congenital hypogonadotropic hypogonadism (CHH) often present with undescended testes and micropenis and lack mini-puberty, leading to impaired responses t...

Background: Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) encompasses a group of autosomal recessive disorders which lead to impairment of steroid biosynthesis in the adrenals and gonads. 21-hydroxylase deficiency (21OHD) is the most common form of CAH (95%), followed by 11β-hydroxylase deficiency (11OHD) and 3β-dehydrogenase steroid dehydrogenase type 2 deficiency (3bHSD2). LC–MSMS based steroid analysis has become an increasingly important method for steroid analyses i...

Introduction: Monogenic obesity refers to a group of rare, early-onset forms of obesity and accounts for about 7% of patients with severe pediatric obesity. Recent reports demonstrate the emerging role of Src-homology-2 (SH2) B adaptor protein 1 (Sh2b1), an important component in the leptin-melanocortin pathway, as a key regulator of leptin and insulin signaling, with possible roles in the pathogenesis of obesity and diabetes. SH2B1 deletions are found to be a...

Background/aims: The high complexity of Pediatric reference ranges across age, sex and units impairs clinical application and comparability of steroid hormone data, e.g., in CAHs. We developed a Multiples-of-Median (MoM) normalization tool to overcome this major drawback in Pediatric Endocrinology.Methods: LC–MS/MS data comprising 10 steroid hormones representing 905 controls (555 males, 350 females, 0 to >16 years) from two previous datasets we...