ESPE Abstracts

Background: The benefit of recombinant human growth hormone (rhGH) in improving height is widely recognised; however, rhGH therapy can affect carbohydrate metabolism and lead to impaired glucose tolerance during treatment. In addition, short children born SGA are predisposed to metabolic abnormalities. This study assessed the long-term safety of growth hormone (Omnitrope®) use in short children born SGA for up to 10 years after the end of treat...

Background: In rodents, fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21), an endocrine member of the FGF family, is mainly produced in the liver and promotes glucose oxidation in several tissues; the circulating concentrations of FGF21 rise shortly after birth. In the human, the ontogeny of circulating FGF21 is essentially unknown.Objective and hypotheses: To assess whether there is also a neonatal surge of circulating FGF21 concen...

Longitudinal growth is driven by endochondral ossification at the growth plate, where chondrocytes undergo a well-organized cellular differentiation process from stem-like progenitors to rapidly-proliferating transit-amplifying cells and to hypertrophic chondrocytes. Numerous recent studies have demonstrated that epigenetic modifications play a crucial role in human development and childhood growth. For example, Brachydactyly mental retardation syndrome (BDMR) is caused by hap...

Recently, we identified Neuritin 1 (NRN1) as preferentially expressed in human white compared to brown adipocyte progenitor cells. In mice, Nrn1 deficiency leads to a reduction in body weight, indicating that it might regulate body weight. In this study, we aim to address the function of NRN1 regarding adipocyte metabolism in vitro and in vivo. We used human SGBS preadipocytes as an in vitro model system. NRN1-deficient cells were generated using len...

Background: OPKO Biologics is a clinical-stage public company developing long-acting therapeutic proteins utilizing CTP technology. The technology involves fusion of the C-terminal peptide of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), which is highly O-glycosylated, to the target protein. CTP enabled the production of a long-acting human growth hormone (hGH) (MOD-4023), which supports a single weekly injection in growth hormone-deficient patients. MOD-4023 is manufactured as a non-vi...

Background: Cell death-inducing DFF45-like effector C (CIDEC) is a novel lipid droplet-coating protein that promotes triglyceride accumulation and inhibits lipolysis. TNFα downregulates CIDEC levels to enhance basal lipolysis, while CIDEC overexpression could block this effect. However, the signalling mechanism by which TNFα regulates CIDEC expression in human is still unknown.Objective and hypotheses: The aim of this study was to investigate t...

Background: There is a need for a convenient and affordable alternative to daily s.c. injections for a growing incidence and prevalence of childhood- and adult-onset human GH (hGH) deficiency.Objective and Hypotheses: We sought to develop a convenient, non-invasive and affordable transdermal patch formulation capable of achieving passive delivery of large molecule drugs such as hGH and insulin for multiple days.Method: Prescription...

Introduction:Despite the widely proven value of insulin analogs in the treatment of children with type 1 diabetes (T1D), pediatric studies of Increased weight gain in T1D are complicated by the age-dependency and gender-dependency of BMI, and also by a trend towards obesity in the general population.Objective: to assess the impact of switching from Humain Insulin (HI) to insulin analogues on the BMI of children with T1D....

Background: Obesity in females is often associated with metabolic complications and hyperandrogenism but the role of adipose tissue (AT) in androgen synthesis remains unclear.Aims/Objectives: Employing human subcutaneous and visceral AT and cultured adipocytes, we studied whether AT could be a source of androgens promoting hyperandrogenism in lean and especially in obese females.Methods</st...

Background: Donohue syndrome (DS) is the most severe form of insulin-resistance due to autosomal recessive mutations in the insulin receptor gene. Previous reports demonstrate a role for recombinant human IGF1 (rhIGF1), however optimal treatment strategy remains unclear.Case series: Four males with DS have been treated with bolus rhIGF1 (see table below). They had no IGF1 response on an IGF1 generation test. No long-term side effects of rhIGF1 were repor...