ESPE Abstracts

Background: In Romania (latitude 48°15’N to 43°40’N), vitamin D supplementation is a common practice mostly in 0–2 year old infants. No published information is available regarding vitamin D status in Romanian children.Objective and hypotheses: We aimed to evaluate the seasonal and age variation of vitamin D status in a large Romanian pediatric patient population.Method: 1 395 individuals, 0–18years, f...

Background: Kisspeptin (encoded by the KISS1 gene in humans), originally described as a puberty onset regulating neuropeptide, is involved in many homeostatic systems, including nutrition status, glucose homeostasis, locomotor activity, etc. Thus, in today’s obesity epidemic, kisspeptin is gaining increasing interest as a research target.Aim: To construct an updated interactome of genetic determinants of obesity, including the kisspeptin si...

Introduction: We investigated the age of starting Estrogen replacement therapy as a key parameter for reaching near normal Final Height (FH) in Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) girls with growth retardation. Although Growth Hormone (GH) therapy significantly increase final height in children with CKD, these children's final height remain under normal population height in several studies. As normal puberty is a key point to reach normal final height, unmet nee...

Background: IGF1 is important for fetal and infant growth and is influenced by nutrition. In young pigs, docosahexaenoic acid (DHA)-enriched food is associated with higher IGF1 levels but studies in human infants are lacking.Aims and objectives: To assess levels of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) relate to IGF1, birth size and growth during infancy.Methods: The setting was a population-based longitudinal cohort comprising 126 fu...

Background: Congenital hyperinsulinism (CHI) is a heterogeneous group of disorders, characterized by hypoglycemia due to inappropriate insulin secretion. Despite huge progress in understanding the pathophysiology of CHI, its etiology remains unknown in about 30% of cases.Aim: To perform whole-exome sequencing in patients with CHI.Results: A total of 314 patients with congenital hyp...

Background: The PAX8 gene (Paired box gene 8) is located on the long arm of chromosome 2 (2q12–q14), contains 12 exons and encodes a similarly named PAX8 protein. This protein is a transcription factor which in the thyroid gland is essential for the follicular cells formation and takes part in the expression of the thyroid-specific genes (TG, TPO, and SLC5A5). Variants in the gene have been previously associated with autosomal dominant thyroid dysgenesis...

Background: Despite current treatment, girls and women with severe forms of 21OHD are exposed lifelong to a chronic excess of androgens and the secondary effects of suppressive corticoids, which make gene therapy (GT) an option to be explored.Objective: To evaluate the effect of human CYP21 gene transfer mediated by adeno-associated virus (AAV) in a Cyp21−/− mouse model.Methods: 17 adult <em...

Background: The adrenal cortex undergoes constant cellular renewal and any effect from recombinant adeno-associated vectors (rAAV) targeting differentiated cells will be transient as extra-chromosomal DNA will be lost by dividing cells. A novel option is to use rAAV to express ectopic adrenocortical enzymes in a stable organ outside the adrenal gland. Our aim was to correct the biochemical phenotype in a mouse model for congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) wit...

The use of recombinant adeno-associated viruses (rAAV) as safe vectors have allowed hundreds of gene therapy attempts to treat monogenic diseases not including bone genetic diseases (Gao G, Nat Rev Drug Dis 2019). To our knowledge, there has been few attempts to apply gene therapy to monogenic bone diseases, largely because most skeletal malformations are being developed during fetal life. Patients affected with acrodysostosis are known to aggravate their skeletal malformation...

Objective: To investigate the clinical and molecular characteristics of a girl with aldosterone synthase deficiency type II (ASDII). We also identified the consequences of a novel splice site mutation in the CYP11B2 gene.Materials and Methods: A4-month-old girl presented with vomiting, diarrhea, and failure to thrive. Her 17α-OHP, cortisol, renin, and aldosterone were all in the normal range, and the ACTH stimulatio...