Nitric oxide modulates the expression of matricellular genes involved in fibrosis in renal glomerular mesangial cells

Nitric oxide modulates the expression of matricellular genes involved in fibrosis in renal glomerular mesangial cells Dissertation Submitted for the acquisition of the degree of Ph. Acknowledgements Praise be to Almighty Allah who is worth all the praises and from whom I seek help and guidance. Thanks to the All-Compassionate and the Most-Merciful who gave me the courage and the strength to complete my doctoral studies. Peace and blessings of Allah be upon Prophet Mohammad whose prophecies motivated me to choose biomedical research as my career. His following encounter with a person, 1500 years ago, was the source of my inspiration and made me to believe that sincere efforts of scientists to understand the basis of complex diseases will lead to better treatment strategies and will help alleviate the sufferings of mankind. " A desert dweller once asked the Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him): What type of people are the best? The Prophet (peace be upon him) replied: The best of them in moral character. The man then asked: O' Messenger of Allah, should we seek medical treatment? The Prophet (peace be upon him) replied: Seek medical treatment, for truly Allah does not send down a disease without sending down a cure for it. Those who have knowledge of the cure know it, and those who are ignorant of it do not (reported in Musnad Ahmad) ". I am grateful for the visionary guidance and encouragement provided by Prof. Detlef Schlöndorff at critical stages of my research. I am indebted to the kind supervision of my thesis advisor, Prof. Harald D. Rupprecht whose constant guidance and competent leadership was the reason to accomplish this challenging mission. I thank him for guiding me through the path of independent thinking and exploration. I thank him for being ever kind and considerate to me. I thank him for his critical reading and correcting this dissertation several times. The credit of completing my doctoral thesis goes particularly to Dr. Peter J. Nelson, my thesis co-advisor, who was ever dedicated to discuss and to suggest tangible solution to my problems. I thank him for his moral support and tireless guidance. I thank him for pressing on me constantly to assemble the scattered data and to write down this thesis. providing some of the research material which offered nice results to fill up the most important pages of this dissertation. I gratefully acknowledge the financial …