Disease relevance of Gigantism

• The expression of a truncated HMGI-C gene induces gigantism associated with lipomatosis [1].
• Patients with a clinical diagnosis of prolactinoma had cells with only PRL mRNA in their tumors, while most (14 of 16) patients with a clinical diagnosis of acromegaly or gigantism had both GH and PRL mRNAs in their tumors [2].
• However, the lack of radiographic pituitary enlargement, the variable pituitary pathology reported in similar patients, and frequent concordance of GH and PRL excess suggest that the pathogenesis of this disorder may differ fundamentally from other forms of acromegaly or gigantism [3].
• In conclusion, administration of long-acting somatostatin analog every 4 weeks in combination with a long-acting dopamine agonist biweekly controlled biochemical parameters and accelerated growth in a patient with gigantism caused by a rare pituitary acidophil stem cell adenoma [4].
• Breast vasculitis in association with breast gigantism in a pregnant patient with systemic lupus erythematosus [5].

Psychiatry related information on Gigantism

• Sotos syndrome, or Cerebral Gigantism is recognised as the syndromic association of mental retardation, macrocephaly and prenatal onset of accelerated growth [6].

High impact information on Gigantism

• This story began several years ago with the dramatic demonstration of gigantism in the SOCS2-knockout mouse [7].
• Comparative analysis of vertebrate dystrophin loci indicate intron gigantism as a common feature [8].
• The hypothesis that intron length might be functionally relevant to the DMD gene regulation is proposed and substantiated by the finding that dystrophin intron gigantism is common to the three vertebrate genes [8].
• Breast gigantism with penicillamine therapy [9].
• In this report, a case of congenital gigantism due to probable central hypersection of GH-releasing hormone (GHRH) is described [10].

Chemical compound and disease context of Gigantism

• Pools of serum from prepubertal and pubertal boys and girls, subjects treated with arginine or insulin, a diabetic girl, and a boy with gigantism who had a serum GH content of 80 micrograms/liter by RIA and 40 micrograms/liter by bioassay, produced dose response curves parallel to that of the GH standard curve [11].
• Mammary gigantism is a rare complication of D-penicillamine treatment [12].
• This result has important implications for insect population ecology and the evolution of eggshell structures, and it suggests a novel hypothesis about insect gigantism during Paleozoic hyperoxia [13].
• Effects of octreotide infusion, surgery and estrogen on suppression of height increase and 20K growth hormone ratio in a girl with gigantism due to a growth hormone-secreting macroadenoma [14].
• Coincidentally with this mitochondrial increase or gigantism, all ethanol groups showed higher beat rates than the control [15].

Biological context of Gigantism

• Parallel gigantism and complex colonization patterns in the Cape Verde scincid lizards Mabuya and Macroscincus (Reptilia: Scincidae) revealed by mitochondrial DNA sequences [16].

Gene context of Gigantism

• Consistent with a germ-line-restricted function of rpl-11.1 and pab-1, mutations in these genes extend life span and cause gigantism [17].
• Relaxation of IGF2 imprinting has also been detected in several patients with the BWS syndrome and a patient with gigantism and Wilms' tumour [18].
• Further investigation of the influence of GH and PRL on adrenal androgen production in children with pituitary gigantism is required [19].
• In particular, mice lacking SOCS2 display gigantism accompanied by evidence of deregulated GH signalling [20].
• GPC3, the gene modified in the Simpson-Golabi-Behmel gigantism/overgrowth syndrome (SGBS), is shown to span more than 500 kb of genomic sequence, with the transcript beginning 197 bp 5' of the translational start site [21].

Analytical, diagnostic and therapeutic context of Gigantism

• Thus early diagnosis and surgical treatment of gigantism of this mixed hGH-PRL secreting pituitary tumour was associated with a cure, which contrasts with the unfavourable outcome of many of the patients previously reported [22].
• A fourteen and a half year-old boy of tall stature presenting with epilepsy was diagnosed as having Sotos syndrome (cerebral gigantism) at the Hacettepe University Children's Hospital. Since EEG abnormalities are known manifestations in this syndrome, a case presenting with epilepsy is very rare [23].

References