The kidney's responsiveness to male sexual hormones has been often neglected. Renal secretion of organic anions is higher in male than in female individuals; as a consequence, most of the xenobiotics that are excreted from the organism through this pathway are eliminated more rapidly by males than by female animals. To gain further insight into this issue, we studied in vitro and in vivo charac...

It is well described that excessive lipid metabolism can cause insulin resistance in both animals and humans, and this has been implicated as a causative factor in the development of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes in humans. Recently, we have shown that intravenous lipid emulsion (liposyn) infusion during a 120-min euglycemic-hyperinsulinemic clamp led to significant reductions in insul...

Despite a twofold higher prevalence of fear-related disorders in women, the neurobiological factors that modulate and drive fear expression are rarely studied in female animals. Fear conditioning and extinction are useful tools for dissecting these mechanisms, and here we tested the effects of environmental manipulations - four days of exposure to 31°C temperatures in the animal housing facilit...

In utero exposure to adverse environmental factors increases the risk of cardiovascular disease in adulthood. The present study tested the hypothesis that antenatal hypoxia causes a gender-dependent programming of altered arterial blood pressure response (BP) in adult offspring. Time-dated pregnant rats were divided into normoxic and hypoxic (10.5% O2 from days 15 to 21 of gestation) groups. Th...

In a study of the role of sex and iodine deficiency in the growth and function of thyroid carcinoma in rats, half of the male and female litter rats were surgically gonadectomized at the age of two months. One month later, all animals were implanted with a transplantable, autonomous, follicular thy roid carcinoma and one-half of all animals were given an iodine-deficient diet. Six weeks later, ...

OBJECTIVE All 3 isoforms of the nitric oxide synthase (NOS) are expressed in atherosclerotic lesions. To test whether neuronal NOS (nNOS) deficiency affects atherosclerosis, we studied apoE/nNOSalpha double knockout (DKO) and apolipoprotein E (apoE) knockout (KO) control mice. METHODS AND RESULTS Lesion area was significantly increased in male DKO (66%) mice after 14 weeks and in female DKO a...

Present study was undertaken to determine the median lethal dose (LD50) of β-cyfluthrin (β-cyf), a synthetic (type II) pyrethroid pesticide in male and female Swiss albino mice. The calculation of LD 50 is an initial screening step in the assessment and evaluation of the toxic characteristic of a chemical substance. The selected single doses of β-cyfluthrin based on the pilot study were 200, 22...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Psychological factors have been implicated in the aetiology of irritable bowel syndrome characterised by intestinal altered motility and visceral hypersensitivity. Similar disorders have been found in rats under stressful conditions. The role of tachykinins in bowel dysfunctions caused by stress is not fully documented. Therefore, we investigated the influence of stress on N...

The paper analyzes the scientific data included the author's own results about the opportunities to increase the reproductive potential of female animals by application of the natural no hormonal substances and the supposed mechanisms of their action on the reproductive system. Also the new scientific data related to the discovering of the "metabolic" hormones (leptin, ghrelin) and kisspeptin/G...

In a study of the role of sex and iodine deficiency in the growth and function of thyroid carcinoma in rats, half of the male and female litter rats were surgically gonadectomized at the age of two months. One month later, all animals were implanted with a transplantable, autonomous, follicular thy roid carcinoma and one-half of all animals were given an iodine-deficient diet. Six weeks later, ...