ESPE Abstracts

A new condition, unique to Irish Travellers, was first described clinically as autosomal recessive natural killer and glucocorticoid deficiency (AR-NKGCD) ORPHA:75391 in 2008 and was attributed to recessive founder variant in MCM4/PRKDC gene in 2012. Irish Travellers are an indigenous endogamous population numbering ~40,000 in the Republic of Ireland. AR-NKGCD is characterised by short stature, glucocorticoid and natural killer cell deficiency and is a disorder of DNA repair. ...

Background: There is increasing recognition that the in utero environment might influence obesity risk.Objective and Hypotheses: We explored the hypothesis that smoking and alcohol consumption in pregnancy are associated with offspring body composition using the Southampton Women’s Survey mother-offspring birth cohort study.Method: At 34 weeks’ gestation, maternal smoking and any alcohol intake in the preceding 1...

Prior to menopause, it is known that women have a lower risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and coronary heart disease compared to age-matched men; it is reported that women have around half the CVD risk and almost a 10-year delay in first myocardial infarction event compared to men. Sex differences in serum lipids could contribute to CVD risk through driving atherosclerosis, the buildup of lipids in the sub-endothelial intimal layer of medium-sized to large arteries. We hypo...

Objectives: No validated achondroplasia (ACH)-specific patient reported outcome (PRO) or clinician-reported outcome (ClinRO) measures are available. A detailed review of generic PRO and ClinRO measures was performed to select relevant tools for further evaluation in a qualitative study.Methods: Published literature describing medical challenges and impacts among children with ACH was reviewed to identify important concep...

Family-based behavioral treatment (FBT) is the recommended intervention for children with obesity (OB). However, there is a large variability in short- and long-term treatment response and mechanisms for unsuccessful treatment outcomes are not understood. We studied brain regions involved in satiety processing in 9-11-year-old children with obesity (OB, n=54) and children with healthy weight (HW, n=22). Subjects underwent a functional magnetic resonan...

Multiple epiphyseal dysplasia (MED) is a chondrodysplasia characterised by delayed epiphyseal endochondral ossification, resulting in disproportionate short stature and early onset osteoarthritis. MED can be caused by heterozygous mutations in COMP, MATN3, COL9A1, COL9A2 and COL9A3, or bi-allelic mutations in SLC26A2. Human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) are reprogrammed somatic cells which can differentiate to form all body tissues and have excellent potential for ti...

Background: Gonadoblastoma is a rare tumour of the gonads presenting in childhood or adolescence. It is a lesion composed of a mixture of germ cells at different stages of maturation, with low malignant potential. It is associated with disorders of sex development (DSD), most commonly Turner mosaic syndrome with Y chromosome material (TMSY), and 46XY gonadal dysgenesis (GD). Little is known about the natural history and incidence of this rare tumour.Obje...

Background: Carney complex (CNC) is a rare multi endocrine neoplasia syndrome associated with endocrine and non-endocrine tumours. Three types of testicular tumour have been described; large cell calcifying Sertoli tumours (LCCST), Leydig cell tumours and testicular tumours of adrenal origin. LCCST is a rare benign stromal tumour, which has been observed in 41% of males affected with CNC, usually appearing in the first decade of life. It can be hormonally active, presenting wi...

Background: Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) is characterised by progressive muscle weakness, resulting from loss of anterior horn cells in the spinal cord and the brain stem nuclei. Survival motor neuron levels (SMN) are reduced due to mutations in the SMN1 gene. SMN function has been implicated in poor bone health. SMA is classified according to age of onset and clinical course accordingly: type 0 (prenatal), type 1 (onset <6 months, severe, never sit unsupported), type 2 (...

Background: Pancreatic epithelial cells represent an attractive cell source for replacement therapy of type 1 diabetes. Previously, we designed a protocol for expansion of human pancreatic duct-derived cells (HDDCs) and showed their β-cell engineering potential.Objective and hypotheses: In this study, we reprogrammed HDDCs into β-cell-like lineage by over-expressing mRNAs of key pancreatic transcription factors (TFs).Meth...