Genital tract bacterial infections could induce abortion and are some of the most common complications of pregnancy; however, the mechanisms remain unclear. We investigated the role of prostaglandins (PGs) in the mechanism of bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced pregnancy loss in a mouse model, and we hypothesized that PGs might play a central role in this action. LPS increased PG product...

BACKGROUND Cross-linking of macromolecules like collagen plays an important role in the development of complications in diabetes and ageing. One of the underlying mechanisms of this cross-linking is the formation of advanced glycation endproducts (AGEs). METHODS In this study, we assessed the use of differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) for the determination of these cross-links and the eff...

The involvement of nitric oxide (NO) in tolerance development to endotoxin has been proposed because peripherally administered NG-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME) (NO synthases inhibitor) delays the endotoxin tolerance formation. Since L-NAME is capable of crossing the blood-brain barrier, the question arises of where activity of NO synthases (inside or outside the blood-brain barrier) is...

Ischemic postconditioning (IPost) could decrease ischemia-reperfusion (IR) injury. It has not yet reported whether IPost is useful when ischemic heart disease is accompanied with co-morbidities like hyperthyroidism. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of IPost on myocardial IR injury in hyperthyroid male rats. Hyperthyroidism was induced with administration of thyroxine in drinking ...

The balance between the principal depressor system (nitric oxide NO) and main pressor systems (renin-angiotensin system RAS, sympathetic nervous system SNS) was studied in two different models of experimental hypertension salt hypertensive Dahl rats and rats made hypertensive by chronic NO synthase inhibition by L-NAME. The animals were subjected to consecutive acute blockade of RAS (captopril ...

PURPOSE To study the effect of aminoguanidine (AMG), an inhibitor of nitric oxide production, on the ocular infection of Balb/c mice with herpes simplex virus (HSV) type 1 strain F and HSV-2 strain G. METHODS Animals were treated with different amounts of AMG (0.5, 0.1, and 0.05 mg/mouse) by topical application in the eye from postinfection (PI) days -2 through +5, considering 0 the day of in...

BACKGROUND Recent studies have shown that endothelial nitric oxide (NO) is involved in modulating the vascular response to vasoconstrictors in portal-systemic collaterals of portal hypertensive rats. This study investigated which isoform of NO synthase is involved in the collateral circulation of portal hypertensive rats. METHODS The relaxation response to acetylcholine (10(-8) M, 10(-7) M an...

Phytochemical investigation of the natural products from Xanthium strumarium led to the isolation of fourteen compounds including seven caffeoylquinic acid (CQA) derivatives. The individual compounds were screened for inhibition of α-glucosidase, protein tyrosine phosphatase 1β (PTP1β), advanced glycation end products (AGEs), and ABTS⁺ radical scavenging activity using in vitro assays. Among th...

Diamine oxidase was previously measured in human pregnancy serum with putrescine or histamine as substrate. We have now documented the presence of spermidine oxidase activity in pregnancy serum by means of a specific radioactive assay with l '4Clspermidine as substrate and Dowex 50 cation-exchange chromatography to separate products from substrate. The apparent Km of a partially purified prepar...

Nitric oxide (NO) has both neuroprotective and neurotoxic effects depending on its concentration and the experimental model. We tested the effects of NG-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME), a nonselective nitric oxide synthase (NOS) inhibitor, and aminoguanidine, a selective inducible NOS (iNOS) inhibitor, on kainic acid (KA)-induced seizures and hippocampal CA3 neuronal death. L-NAME (50 mg...