BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Although percutaneous liver biopsy (PLB) is the gold standard for staging hepatic fibrosis in hemodialysis patients with chronic hepatitis C (CHC) before renal transplantation or antiviral therapy, concerns exist about serious postbiopsy complications. Using transient elastography (TE, Fibroscan(®)) to predict the severity of hepatic fibrosis has not been prospectively...

Prevention of adverse cardiac remodeling after myocardial infarction (MI) remains a therapeutic challenge. Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACE-I) are a well-established first-line treatment. ACE-I delay fibrosis, but little is known about their molecular effects on cardiomyocytes. We investigated the effects of the ACE-I delapril on cardiomyocytes in a mouse model of heart failure (HF...

Etioplast, Protochlorophyllide, Prolamellar Body, Saponin, Red Light Exposure to red light of high intensities leads to saponin and prolamellar body degradation in etiolated Avena sativa seedlings. Exposure to red light of low intensities increases the saponin percentage found in prolamellar bodies without changing the overall saponin content. Proto­ chlorophyllide is assumed to act a decisive ...

Like cancer, pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is characterised by a pro-proliferative and anti-apoptotic phenotype. In PAH, pulmonary artery smooth muscle cell (PASMC) proliferation is enhanced and apoptosis suppressed. The sustainability of this phenotype requires the activation of pro-survival transcription factors, such as signal transducer and activator of transcription (STAT)3 and nuc...

Aged individuals have impaired diastolic relaxation– lusitropic function. Dobutamine, a selective 1-adrenergic agonist, is used to augment systolic cardiac function at the termination of cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB). However, our question is whether dobutamine will also enhance the lusitropic function in the aged individual. The myocyte mechanism for the rate of ventricular relaxation is depend...

We have studied the secondary structure of native phospholamban (PLB), a 52-residue integral membrane protein that regulates calcium uptake into the cardiac sarcoplasmic reticulum, as well as its 27-residue carboxy-terminal transmembrane segment (PLB26-52). The relative contents of alpha-helix, beta-strand, and random coil, as well as the spatial orientations of the alpha-helices of these molec...

BACKGROUND The activation of the beta-adrenergic system promotes G protein stimulation that, via cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP), alters the structure of protein kinase A (PKA) and leads to phospholamban (PLB) phosphorylation. This protein participates in the system that controls intracellular calcium in muscle cells, and it is the primary regulator of sarcoplasmic reticulum calcium pump ...

The purpose of this study is to determine the possible effect of photoluminescence of bioceramic (PLB) on ischemic cerebral infarction (stroke), by using an animal model of transient middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO). Sprague-Dawley rats were used to induce MCAO to block the origin of the left MCAO; three months later, the positive chronic stroke rats were selected by running tunnel maze;...

AIMS The performance of percutaneous echo-guided biopsy in the hepatic tumoral diagnosis is limited (90% sensitivity) by several factors, among which tumor characteristics (type, size, and location) play an important role. Contrast enhanced ultrasound guided percutaneous biopsy (CEUS-PLB) is a new developed technique aimed at increasing the accuracy of percutaneous biopsies. The objective of ou...

OBJECTIVE Glucocorticoids (GCs) are regarded as diabetogenic because they impair insulin sensitivity and islet-cell function. This study assessed whether treatment with the glucagon-like peptide receptor agonist (GLP-1 RA) exenatide (EXE) could prevent GC-induced glucose intolerance. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS A randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind, crossover study in eight healthy m...