BACKGROUND The purpose of this study was to prospectively determine the immunogenicity of nonvalved allograft tissue used to repair congenital heart defects. METHODS AND RESULTS We prospectively analyzed the immune response of 11 children, 1.4 months to 10 years of age, who required nonvalved allografts to alleviate stenosis during repair of congenital heart defects. In 7 patients, pulmonary ...

The ovarian hormone progesterone is essential for normal breast development and function. However, it is also implicated in breast cancer development. Progesterone signals through two nuclear receptors [progesterone receptor A (PRA) and progesterone receptor B (PRB)], which display striking differences in transcriptional activity when analyzed separately. The two species are coexpressed equally...

INTRODUCTION Both atorvastatin and mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) have been used for panel reactive antibodies (PRA) reduction in transplant candidates. The purpose of this study was to compare the effect of low-dose MMF and atorvastatin on PRA in sensitized hemodialysis patients waiting for kidney transplantation. MATERIALS AND METHODS A total of 40 adult patients with end-stage renal disease w...

A correlation was found between the expression of a specific Mycoplasma fermentans surface antigen (Pra, proteinase-resistant antigen) and the site of isolation of the organism from the infected host. Strains which expressed Pra were most frequently associated with cells of bone marrow origin, and strains which lacked expression of Pra were most commonly isolated from the respiratory tract, gen...

BACKGROUND Hypertensive states could result from constitutive activation of mineralorticoid receptor (MR) that generates salt retention and blood pressure elevation. Moreover, microsatellite regions can be associated to the regulation of the gene expression, producing subtle pathologies. AIM To determine the influence of microsatellite marker AGAT of the mineralocorticoid receptor gene in the...

BACKGROUND Associations between genotype and intellectual outcome in patients with phenylketonuria are complicated because intelligence is influenced by many variables, including environmental factors and other genetic determinants. Intellectual changes with age, both on and after relaxation of diet, vary within the patient population. This study aims to determine whether a significant associat...

Twenty-one healthy newborn infants whose mothers had normal pregnancies and deliveries were studied. Plasma renin activity (PRA) and plasma aldosterone concentration (PAldo) were measured by semimicro methods in cord blood and on the 6th day of life. PRA and PAldo were increased in cord blood compared with values previously found in healthy infants between 1 month and 1 year of age. There was a...

Progesterone receptor (PR) and progestins affect mammary tumorigenesis; however, the relative contributions of PR isoforms A and B (PRA and PRB, respectively) in cancer cell migration remains elusive. By using a bi-inducible MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cell line expressing PRA and/or PRB, we analyzed the effect of conditional PR isoform expression. Surprisingly, unliganded PRB but not PRA strongly...