BACKGROUND Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected patients often demonstrate accelerated aging processes. We investigated whether the vascular age of a cohort of stable HIV-infected patients receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) was increased and sought out predictors of increased vascular age. METHODS In this cross-sectional study, 400 HIV-infected patients (mean age, 48 years) attendi...

Tumor vessels often lack the smooth muscle layer, and the instability is conducive to tumor invasion and metastasis. The effect of tumor microenvironment on vascular smooth muscle cells needs to be explored. In the present study, we examined the density of the tumor vessels in human colorectal cancer tissues, and used the tumor conditioned medium of human colorectal cancer HT29 cells to mimic t...

AIM To compare endoglin (CD105) and the pan-endothelial marker CD31 in the assessment of angiogenesis in glioblastoma and to evaluate their values in the prognosis of this malignancy. METHODS Forty-six cases of glioblastoma were included in this retrospective study. All cases were immunohistochemically stained for endoglin (CD105), CD31, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), and MIB-1 (K...

OBJECTIVE Few studies have examined the association between breast density and breast cancer tumor characteristics. We examined the association between hormonal, proliferative, and histologic tumor characteristics and mammographic breast density in women with breast cancer. METHODS We conducted a cross-sectional analysis in 546 women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer to evaluate the assoc...

The discovery that aerobic exercise increases adult hippocampal neurogenesis and can enhance cognitive performance holds promise as a model for regenerative medicine. This study adds two new pieces of information to the rapidly growing field. First, we tested whether exercise increases vascular density in the granular layer of the dentate gyrus, whole hippocampus, and striatum in C57BL/6J mice ...

We report a methodology for computing functional vascular density within a rodent dorsal window chamber model based on long-exposure laser speckle imaging (LSI). This technique relies on the presence of flow to create detailed vasculature maps. Employing this contrast mechanism is not possible using conventional imaging methods. Additionally, a freeware algorithm for computing functional vascul...

The anti-inflammatory effects of high-density lipoproteins (HDL) are well documented and include inhibition of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) oxidation, reduction of inflammatory cytokines and vascular leukocyte adhesion molecules, and participation in innate immunity. However, certain conditions, including coronary disease, diabetes mellitus, systemic inflammation, and a diet high in saturated ...

After vascular endothelial injury, angiotensin II (ANG II) plays a role in the resulting hypertrophic response, and expression of epidermal growth factor (EGF) is enhanced. Therefore, we tested the possibility that EGF regulates vascular ANG II action and receptor expression. Incubation of cultured aortic vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC) with EGF (or basic fibroblast growth factor but not pl...

Hot spots in tumors are regions of high vascular density in the center of the tumor and their analysis is an important diagnostic tool in cancer treatment. We present a model for vascular remodeling in tumors predicting that the formation of hot spots correlates with local inhomogeneities of the original arterio-venous vasculature of the healthy tissue. Probable locations for hot spots in the l...

Optimum conceptus (fetal and placental) growth appears to be achieved through the combination of both uterine and fetal-directed mechanisms. The uterus, in which a litter of conceptuses develops, has the major impact on limiting the size each conceptus ultimately attains; however, the genotype of each conceptus can differentially resist this effect, resulting in littermate conceptuses of differ...