ESPE Yearbook of Paediatric Endocrinology

Brief summary: In this longitudinal study, blood glucose trajectories and their relationship with autoantibodies appearance were assessed in 1050 children with high genetic risk of type 1 diabetes (T1D) between 4 months and 3.6 years. Post-prandial blood glucose levels increased around 2 months prior to autoantibody seroconversion, with further increases thereafter, suggesting that islet autoimmunity co-occurs or follows insults on the β-cells.This ...

Brief summary: This observational study in three different cohorts found an increased risk for atherothrombotic disease associated with the commonly used sugar substitute erythritol. Untargeted metabolomics (in cohort 1, n=1157) and targeted metabolomics (in cohorts 2 and 3, n=2149 USA and n=833 Europe, respectively) investigations revealed an increased risk for major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) including death, myocardial infarction and str...

In Brief: The authors created mouse embryos in the laboratory from a combination of multiple stem cell lines. These embryos were developed ex vivo up to the equivalent of day 8.5 post-fertilization. Embryos developed within an extraembryonic yolk sac and were similar to whole natural embryos, with defined forebrain and midbrain regions, a beating heart-like structure, a neural tube and somites, a tail bud containing neuromesodermal progenitors, a gut tube, and also pr...

Nature. 2021 Sep;597(7876):381–386. doi: 10.1038/s41586-021-03822-7.Brief Summary: This study investigated the mutational background of somatic cells and rates of mutation in 29 distinct anatomical structures and compared these with the male germline from the same donor. The rate of mutation was lowest in spermatogonia.Characterization of mutations that occur in...

To read the full abstract: Nature 2017;550:255-259Loss of appetite, and even aversion to food, is a common experience during periods of illness (e.g. infection and pyrexia) and/or treatment (e.g. chemotherapy). This responses is distinct from the body’s homeostatic mechanisms (the hypothalamic leptin receptor-AGRP-POMC-MC4R axis), which normally regulate appetite and weight gain in ch...

Brief summary: Emont et al. created a cell atlas of human and mouse white adipose tissue, which goes a long way in informing our understanding of the complexity of adipose tissue.Although adipocytes make up the largest proportion of adipose tissue volume, the cellular structure of adipose tissue is far more complex and includes adipose tissue progenitor cells (APCs), fibroblasts, vascular cells and immune cells. We are also beginning to understa...

To read the full abstract: Nat Genet 2017;49:1231-1238This large international initiative is a major collaboration across 25 research institutes that was set up as part of the scientific community’s response to concerns regarding the notoriously poor reproducibility of scientific research. Up to now, many mouse gene knock-outs have been made and reported, but inconsistency between finding...

To read the full abstract: Nature. 2018 Jul;559(7714):405–409This article decries a CRISPR-Cas9 genome-targeting system that does not require viral vectors, allowing rapid and efficient insertion of large DNA sequences at specific sites in the genomes of primary human T cells, while preserving cell viability and function.The common approach to genetically...

To read the full abstract: J Am Soc Nephrol. 2017 Aug;28(8):2529-2539The association of hyperinsulinaemic hypoglycaemia (HH) and polycystic kidneys has not been reported before. Here, the authors studied 17 patients from 11 different families and found that all patients had a combination HH and polycystic kidneys. The HH was mild and some patients required diazoxide therapy. In contrast the poly...

J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2021 Mar 17:dgab177. doi: 10.1210/clinem/dgab177. PMID: 33729509.Vishnopolska et al. conducted a comprehensive evaluation of 67 hypopituitarism candidate genes in 170 congenital hypopituitarism (CH) patients from Argentina by using small molecule molecular inversion probes followed by sequencing (smMIPS) panel. 57 patients had isolated growth hormone defici...