ESPE Yearbook of Paediatric Endocrinology

AIMS Public Health 2020; 7(2): 380–392. doi: 10.3934/publichealth.2020032– Pakistan has a significantly higher prevalence of stunted children under 5 years old compared with other countries of the same income level. Stunting is more frequent in children of shorter compared to taller mothers– The authors hypothesized that higher maternal education, a modifiable factor, i...

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JAMA Netw Open. 2021;4(3):e214117. https://bit.ly/3zopFZ4This prospective observational cohort study (n=4638) measured vitamin D level in the year before undergoing COVID-19 testing. The risk of a positive COVID-19 test in Black, but not White, individuals was 2.64-fold higher if vitamin D level was 30–40 ng/ml compared to > 40 ng/ml.Vitamin D may improve immune functi...

eLife 2020;9:e58949 https://elifesciences.org/articles/58949In the mouse, the osteoblast-derived hormone Lipocalin-2 (LCN2) suppresses food intake and acts as a satiety signal. This study now shows that a meal challenge increases serum LCN2 levels in humans with normal or overweight, but not in those with obesity. Postprandial LCN2 serum levels correlate inversely with hunger sensation in challenged ...

Current Biology 2021 May 17;S0960-9822(21)00614-X. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2021.04.067The North Atlantic right whale (Narwhale, NARW) is a medium-sized toothed whale that lives year-round in the Arctic waters around Greenland, Canada, and Russia. It possesses a large ‘tusk’ from a protruding canine tooth. NARW born in recent years have experienced stunted growth, and...

N Engl J Med 2021; 384:252–260 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2031054In the Yearbook, we have been following the CRISPR story since its very beginning. Last year, Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing tool. Here, scientists have published the first successful treatment (as...

Science 04 Dec 2020: 370(6521): eaaz6827 https://bit.ly/3q47CTGThese authors review the human traits and genes that microbiota may have contributed or altered in response to changes in host diet, climate, or pathogen exposure.It is now widely recognized that the microbiota of mammals is a product of coevolution. Nevertheless, humans are different in having a geographically specific micr...

Nature 2020; 583: 96–102https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2434-2The authors applied whole-genome sequencing (WGS) in 9,802 patients with a rare disease in a national health system to streamline diagnosis and to discover unknown aetiological variants in the coding and non-coding regions of the genome. WGS identified the genetic diagnosis in 1138/7065 extensively phenoty...

Nature 2021; 592: 80–85https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03345-1These authors performed whole-genome sequencing (WGS) of 86 bulk placental samples and of 106 microdissections of placental tissue in order to reconstruct the development of human placental cells from data on somatic mutations. They found that the placenta comprises of multiple very large, genetically dis...

PLoS Genet. 2020; 16(10): e1009069. doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1009069The authors used mouse conditional gene knock-out models to investigate the role of Insulin-like growth factor-2 (Igf2) in pancreatic growth and function. When Igf2 was deleted specifically in mesenchyme-derived cells (but not when deleted in exocrine and endocrine cells), the entire pancreas was smal...