Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is characterized by increased muscle damage and an abnormal blood flow after muscle contraction leading to a state of functional ischemia. Abundant evidence suggests that endothelial circulating progenitor cells (EPCs) play an important role in mediating vascular and muscle repair mechanisms and that the stromal cell-derived factor (SDF)-1 alpha chemokine is re...

INSTRUCTIONS FOR USE This Medical Policy provides assistance in interpreting UnitedHealthcare benefit plans. When deciding coverage, the enrollee specific document must be referenced. The terms of an enrollee's document (e.g., Certificate of Coverage (COC) or Summary Plan Description (SPD) and Medicaid State Contracts) may differ greatly from the standard benefit plans upon which this Medical P...

An angiogenic extract of bovine retina as well as two purified angiogenic growth factors, acidic and basic fibroblast growth factor, stimulate vascular endothelial cell prostacyclin (PGI2) release in vitro as measured by radioimmunoassay of its stable metabolite 6-keto PGF1 alpha (6kPGF). After incubating fetal bovine aortic endothelial cells with 10% retinal extract (RE) for 24 hr, 6.5 ng of 6...

BACKGROUND The molecular mechanisms by which myocardial ischemia translates into ventricular remodeling remain unclear. METHODS We investigated whether hypoxia and proinflammatory cytokines are specific inducers of remodeling signals in an in vitro model of cultured adult human ventricular myocytes (AC16 cells). RESULTS Hypoxia modified the ratio of matrix remodeling factors by increasing t...

The problem of constructing polynomials with all coefficients 1 or −1 and large merit factor (equivalently with small L norm on the unit circle) arises naturally in complex analysis, condensed matter physics, and digital communications engineering. Most known constructions arise (sometimes in a subtle way) from difference sets, in particular from Paley and Singer difference sets. We consider th...

COVERAGE RATIONALE INSTRUCTIONS FOR USE This Medical policy provides assistance in interpreting UnitedHealthcare benefit plans. When deciding coverage, the enrollee specific document must be referenced. The terms of an enrollee's document (e.g., Certificate of Coverage (COC) or Summary Plan Description (SPD)) may differ greatly. In the event of a conflict, the enrollee's specific benefit docume...

3 Timothy P. Moran1, 2, Keiko Nakano1, Gregory S. Whitehead1, Seddon Y. Thomas1, Donald 4 N. Cook1,3 and Hideki Nakano1,3 5 6 Immunity, Inflammation and Disease Laboratory, Division of Intramural Research, National 7 Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, NIH, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina 27709, 8 USA, Department of Pediatrics, University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Cha...

Perpetuation of immune deficiency throughout tumor development is, to a great degree, the result of impairment of dendritic cell function by products secreted by tumors. They include cytokines, non-tumor-specific molecules (gangliosides, prostanoids, nitric oxide, etc.) and tumor-(specific) antigens (MUC-1, PSA, Her-2 neu). They may engender a distortion of dendritic cell development, block den...

Platelet aggregation is inhibited through a negative feedback mechanism by the L-arginine/nitric oxide (NO) pathway found in platelets themselves. We have shown that long-term smoking impairs the bioactivity of platelet-derived NO (PDNO), resulting in an increased platelet aggregability. However, little is known about the relation between other coronary risk factors and PDNO release. Accordingl...