an Endocrine Society Thematic Issue
Read our special collection of journal articles, published in 2018-2019, focused on immuno-endocrinology! Curation of the collection was guided by Altmetric Attention Scores and Featured Article designations.
New techniques and therapies have allowed increased attention to the myriad ways in which the endocrine and immune systems interact. Research on these interactions holds the promise of deeper understanding of vital processes and improved therapies, including ones that target cancer and those that aim to prevent autoimmune attacks on endocrine organs.
Rutman and associates provide in Endocrinology impressive evidence that extracellular vesicles from pancreatic islets are internalized by immune cells, leading to proinflammatory immune responses. Jansson and her team, working to develop an immunotherapy for Graves’ disease, found they could induce tolerance to the thyrotropin receptor with soluble peptides in a mouse model and that current drug treatments did not disrupt this mechanism. Aaron Cox and his coauthors highlight in their review evidence that immune cells and adipocytes coordinately enable expansion of white adipose tissue and energy homeostasis—immune responses are not all bad. Vermilllion and colleagues find that estriol strikingly moderates the immune response to influenza virus infection in mice but does not impair clearance of the virus.
On the clinical side, Venneri and colleagues show in JCEM that the timing of glucocorticoid administration to patients with adrenal insufficiency affects the regulation of circadian genes in peripheral blood mononuclear cells: (Non-standard) daily administration restores gene expression to the levels in controls. Hiam and colleagues look at epigenetic reprogramming of immune cells in women with PCOS, and find that the syndrome is associated with global and gene-specific DNA methylation remodeling in a cell-type-specific manner. Skov and associates find that ischemic heart disease is higher in patients with autoimmune Addison disease, especially women. Falhammar and his coauthors, writing in JES, report that autoimmune thyroid and other endocrine disorders are much more common in patients with 21-hydroxylase deficiency than in controls and hint at possible explanations. Head and colleagues, also in JES, find in a retrospective review evidence that immunotherapy with pembrolizumab in combination with mitotane seems to extend the lives of patients with metastatic adrenocortical cancer.
Endocrine complications of the newly approved immune checkpoint inhibitor cancer drugs are the topic of a comprehensive review in Endocrine Reviews by Lee-Shing Chang and coauthors, and in the same journal Masaaki Yamamoto and colleagues discuss a newly described pituitary autoimmune disease, anti-PIT-1 hypophysitis, and isolated ACTH deficiency as paraneoplastic syndromes.
Published: January 2020
It can be difficult to keep up to date in the rapidly evolving and expanding world of endocrine science. We curate topical collections of research from across our journals, Endocrine Reviews, Endocrinology, Journal of the Endocrine Society, and The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, so that you can easily find and read recent, influential articles on the topics that interest you.
Selection in each Thematic Issue is guided by online metrics, including Altmetric Attention Scores, Featured Article designations, and identification of leading authors and key topics. Each month, we publish a new Thematic Issue online and work to highlight and promote endocrine science in the press, through email, on social media and across other distribution channels.
Join our endocrine community and become a member! Only members receive access to a variety of member benefits that will enhance your career. If your membership has lapsed, rejoin today so that you can continue to receive your membership benefits.
We provide our journal authors with a variety of resources for increasing the discoverability and citation of their published work. Use these tools and tips to broaden the impact of your article.