ESPE Abstracts

Background: Congenital Hyperinsulinism in Infancy (CHI) is characterised by inappropriate insulin release. We currently attribute hypoglycaemia to β-cell dysfunction because of defects in the ion channel genes ABCC8 or KCNJ11. However, the CHI pancreas is also associated with inappropriate expression of foetal-like transcription factors and enhanced cell proliferation.Hypothesis: As the CHI pancreas bears similarities to the foetal pancreas, we hypo...

Background: Congenital hyperinsulinism in infancy (CHI) is associated with inappropriate insulin release from β-cells. This is causally linked to defects in the ion channel genes ABCC8 and KCNJ11 regulating insulin, but little is known about the metabolic support for sustained insulin exocytosis.Objective and hypotheses: We hypothesised that inappropriate insulin release in CHI would require sustained ATP generation by enhanced mit...

Background: Congenital hyperinsulinism of infancy (CHI) is the most common cause of severe hypoglycaemia in children. Although CHI arises from mutations in KATP channels which lead to inappropriate insulin secretion, CHI it also is associated with marked changes in islet organization.Aims and objectives: Our aim was to investigate the structure and composition of the islet capsule in CHI and age-matched control tissue.Me...

Background: Atypical forms of congenital hyperinsulinism in infancy (CHI-A) represent a novel subgroup of patients who present later in the neonatal period; have poor responses to medical intervention; an unremarkable histopathology and no known genetic cause of disease.Objective and hypotheses: To compare the expression profiles of insulin and somatostatin in islets from patients with CHI-A, diffuse CHI (CHI-D) and age-matched control tissue.<p clas...

Background: Congenital hyperinsulinism in infancy (CHI) is a neonatal disorder of uncontrolled insulin release leading to profound hypoglycaemia. In addition to defects in pancreatic β-cell function, we have recently demonstrated that the CHI pancreas is highly proliferative, with rates of proliferation up to 14-fold higher than in age-matched controls.Objective and hypotheses: As patients require pancreatectomy to alleviate hypoglycaemia, our aim w...

Background: Diffuse congenital hyperinsulinism in infancy (CHI-D) mainly arises from mutations in KATP channel genes. In addition, there are also several reports of increased cell proliferation in CHI-D. We hypothesised that the higher rates of proliferation in CHI-D are as a consequence of failure to terminate proliferation in the neonatal period.Objective and hypotheses: To test this we examined the proliferative index (PI) of CHI-D tissue a...

Background: The mechanisms responsible for inappropriate insulin release from β-cells in congenital hyperinsulinism in infancy (CHI) have largely focused upon defects in KATP channels. Little is known about insulin biogenesis, the profiles of insulin in insulin-containing secretory granules or whether the impact of KATP channel defects is the same in diffuse- and focal disease.Objective and hypotheses: To define the ultrastruct...

Background: Congenital hyperinsulinism of infancy (CHI) mainly arises from loss-of-function mutations in the KATP channel genes. As a consequence, insulin release is uncontrolled and causes persistent or recurrent episodes of hypoglycaemia in neonates. In patients with diffuse-CHI (CHI-D) increased rates of cell proliferation has been reported, but the causes of proliferation are unknown.Objective/Hypotheses: To assess the extent of cell proliferation an...

Background: Hypoglycaemia due to congenital hyperinsulinism (CHI) usually presents early (E-CHI) in the neonatal period, but late presentation (age >1 month) (L-CHI) also occurs. Adverse neurodevelopment is well recognised in both early and late CHI, but differences between both groups are not known.Objective and hypotheses: We examined a cohort of children with E-CHI and L-CHI to test neurodevelopmental outcomes in mid-childhood.<p class="abstex...

Background/hypothesis: Congenital hyperinsulinism in infancy (CHI) mainly arises from mutations in ATP-sensitive potassium channel genes. However, the expression pattern of defects can be markedly diverse. In diffuse CHI (CHI-D) all islet cells express gene defects, whereas patients with focal CHI (CHI-F) only express defects in a localised region of islet cells due to loss of a maternally-imprinted locus. Here, we examined the properties of a novel population of CHI islet cel...