Aim: Exenatide, an incretin mimetic for the adjunct treatment of type 2 diabetes (DM2), reduced A1C and weight in 30-week placebo-controlled trials. This analysis examined the effects of exenatide on glycaemic control and weight over an 82-week period in patients with DM2 unable to achieve adequate glycaemic control with sulphonylurea (SU) and/or metformin (MET). [À0.9 AE 0.1% (mean AE SE)] was sustained to week 82 (À1.1 AE 0.1%), with 48% of patients achieving A1C 7% at week 82. At week 30, exenatide reduced body weight (a secondary endpoint) from baseline (À2.1 AE 0.2 kg), with progressive reduction at week 82 (À4.4 AE 0.3 kg). Similar results were observed for the intent-to-treat population (n ¼ 551), with reductions in A1C and weight at week 82 of À0.8 AE 0.1% and À3.5 AE 0.2 kg respectively. The 82-week completer cohort showed statistically significant improvement in some cardiovascular risk factors. The most frequent adverse events were generally mild-to-moderate nausea and hypoglycaemia. Conclusion: In summary, 82 weeks of adjunctive exenatide treatment in patients with DM2 treated with SU and/or MET resulted in sustained reduction in A1C and progressive reduction in weight, as well as improvement in some cardiovascular risk factors.

Exenatide added to maximally effective doses of SU or SU plus MET resulted in a sustained reduction in HbA(1c) and a progressive reduction in weight over 1 1/2 years.

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Mice homozygous for the recessive mutation piebald {sJ exhibit a white-spotted coat caused by the defective development of neural crest-derived melanocytes. The severity of white spotting varies greatly, depending on the genetic background on which s is expressed. A backcross between two inbred strains of s/s mice that exhibit large differences in the degree of spotting was used to identify six genetic modifiers of piebald spotting on chromosomes 2, 5, 7, 8, I0, and 13. The loci differed in their spatial contribution to spotting on the dorsal versus ventral surfaces of mice; nonadditive interactions were observed between loci on chromosomes 2 and S. This study underscores the power of using genetic analyses to identify and analyze loci involved in modifying the severity of phenotypic traits in mice.

The N-myc gene is amplified in 20-25% of human neuroblastomas, and this amplification serves as a poor prognostic factor. However, few genes have been determined to be direct targets of N-myc. Our current studies focused on identifying N-myc target genes, especially those affected in cells such as neuroblastomas that have high levels of N-myc protein. To pursue this goal, we performed differential expression screens with cell-culture systems containing high versus low levels of N-myc. The design of our experiments was such that we should identify genes both upregulated and downregulated by N-myc. Accordingly, we identified 22 genes upregulated by N-myc and one gene downregulated by N-myc. However, only five of these genes responded to increased N-myc levels in more than one system. Further analysis of the regulation of these genes required determining whether they were direct or indirect targets of N-myc. Therefore, we used a formaldehyde crosslinking and immunoprecipitation procedure to determine whether N-myc was bound to the promoters of these putative target genes in living cells. We found that low levels of N-myc were bound to the promoters of the telomerase and prothymosin genes in neuroblastoma cells having low amounts of N-myc but that the amounts of N-myc bound to these promoters greatly increased with overexpression of N-myc. However, the amount of max bound to the promoters was high before and after induction of N-myc. Therefore, our studies suggest that N-myc competes with other max partners for binding to target promoters. Our use of the chromatin immunoprecipitation assay suggests a molecular explanation for the consequences of amplification of the N-myc gene in neuroblastomas.