ESPE Abstracts

Background: There is much activity in Africa in Paediatric Endocrinology. The international societies, ESPE, and ISPAD helped significantly in the development of paediatric endocrinology training. Considerable research is being done at the PETCA in Kenya, PETWCA in Lagos and elsewhere, but too few of the studies are published. Owing to the pressure of clinical work in Africa most endocrinologists have difficulty in completing their research.Objective and...

Congenital hyperinsulinism (HI) is the most common cause of persistent hypoglycemia in infants and children. In the past 20+ years there have been tremendous advances in the understanding of the molecular genetics of HI, including the discovery of the mechanisms responsible for a focal form of the disease that can cured surgically. However, treatment options for non-focal HI continue to be limited, with only one drug currently approved for this indication. As a result of delay...

Introduction: Achondroplasia is the most common of the skeletal dysplasias and short stature with severe anatomic disproportion. Bone endochondrial growth is affected. The entity was described by Depaul in 1851 and the name which comes from the Greek word chondros (cartilage) and plasis (formation) was given by Parrot. It is an autosomal dominant monogenic disease with complete penetrance. Incidence is 1/25000 to 1/40000 of live births. It is caused by a mutat...

Background: Congenital Hypopituitarism (CH) is a rare heterogeneous genetic disorder characterized by the deficiency of pituitary hormones. CH can be associated with extra pituitary phenotypes such as midline craniofacial malformations. To date, a minority of patients carry pathogenic variants in more than 30 genes, and thus more than 80% of cases remain unresolved.Objective: To identify de novo pathogenic variants in no...

Introduction: Maternal caloric restriction during gestation leads to offspring’s metabolic programming through epigenetic changes, which increase the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases in adulthood.Objectives: To study in a swine animal model: i) DNA methylation changes associated with caloric restriction during gestation in the adipose tissue of the offspring; and ii) the reversibility of these changes by metformin treatment.<p class="a...

Background: Early catch-up growth, between birth and age two years, in infants born small-for-gestational-age (SGA) is a risk factor for the development of cardiometabolic diseases in adulthood. The basis and mechanisms underpinning catch-up growth in SGA newborns are unknown.Objectives: We aimed to investigate the catch-up predictive ability of cord blood miRNAs in SGA infants.Methods: MicroRNA PCR Human Panels were used to study ...

Background: The placenta plays a key role in regulating fatty acid (FA) transport from maternal to fetal circulation. An unfavourable FA profile in the placenta, reflecting an inadequate nutritional status during pregnancy, may cause changes in placental DNA methylation and negatively affect fetal growth and metabolic health of the offspring.Objectives: We aimed to study the association of an unfavourable placental FA profile with placental DNA methylati...

Background: DLK1 or PREF1 is an imprinted gene highly expressed from the paternal allele in embryonic tissues and placenta. It has been recently implicated in adipose tissue expansion and diabetes development. The human rs1802710 polymorphism (SNP) in DLK1 gene has been associated with early-onset extreme obesity but its role determining growth is unknown.Objective and hypotheses: To study the preferential paternal transmission...

Introduction: It is known that excessive gestational weight gain can cause an adverse intrauterine environment and increase the risk of cardio-metabolic diseases in the offspring. Epigenetics could be one of the mechanisms involved in this regulation.Objective: We aimed to study the DNA methylation profile of umbilical cord tissue that is associated with gestational weight gain (GWG), and its relationship with cardio-met...

Background and Aims: Gestational obesity can cause metabolic programming in the offspring. Epigenetic modifications of DNA have been suggested as potential mechanisms underlying this programming. FRAT-1 is a gene involved in the WNT signaling pathway, which is an important regulator of adipose tissue development. The objective of this work was to study the methylation status of FRAT-1 in placentas of women with either normal weight or gestati...