The role of type III transforming growth factor-β receptor (TβRIII) in the pathogenesis of heart diseases remains largely unclear. Here, we investigated the functional role and molecular mechanisms of TβRIII in the development of myocardial hypertrophy. Western blot and quantitative real time-polymerase chain reaction analyses revealed that the expression of TβRIII was significantly elevated in...

Cardiac hypertrophy is a compensatory response to stress or stimuli, which results in arrhythmia and heart failure. Although multiple molecular mechanisms have been identified, cardiac hypertrophy is still difficult to treat. Pyroptosis is a caspase-1 dependent pro-inflammatory programmed cell death. Caspase-1 is involved in various types of diseases, including hepatic injury, cancers, and diab...

Although the molecular signals underlying cardiac hypertrophy have been the subject of intense investigation, the extent of common and distinct gene regulation between different forms of cardiac hypertrophy remains unclear. We hypothesized that a general and comparative analysis of hypertrophic gene expression, using microarray technology in multiple models of cardiac hypertrophy, including aor...

Introduction  Adenotonsillar hypertrophy is more common in children with sickle cell disease, and can lead to sleep-disordered breathing. Objectives  To determine the frequency of adenotonsillar hypertrophy in pre-school children with sickle cell disease and assess the diagnostic accuracy of the sleep-disordered breathing subscale in the Sleep Disturbance Scale for Children. Method  Observation...

Diabetic nephropathy is characterized early in its course by glomerular hypertrophy and, importantly, mesangial hypertrophy, which correlate with eventual glomerulosclerosis. The mechanism of hypertrophy, however, is not known. Gene disruption of the tumor suppressor PTEN, a negative regulator of the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase/Akt pathway, in fruit flies and mice demonstrated its role in siz...

A 32 year old Indian male presented with progressive painless swelling of both jaws and temporal regions. The patient was otherwise asymptomatic and denied history of bruxism. Clinical examination revealed bilateral non-tender swelling over both mandibles and temporal fossae (Figure 1). Systemic examination and dental examination was normal. magnetic resonance imaging (mrI) of the head revealed...

Everyone thinks they know what “cardiac hypertrophy” is: a reactive increase in cardiac size/myocardial mass in response to hemodynamic stress that, in humans, predisposes to early death.1 Yet, the term “hypertrophy” has become one of the most misused and inaccurate terms in the cardiovascular basic science literature because of its nonspecificity and, as typically used, lack of mechanistic imp...

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is the term for a heterogeneous group of disorders for which various mutations of genes involving proteins of the cardiac sarcomere lead to hypertrophy of various segments of the left ventricle. The hypertrophy can involve the left and/or right ventricle, be symmetric or asymmetric, involving the septum, free wall, mid-ventricle, or apex. The phenomenon of solitary p...

Background—Cardiac hypertrophy is characterized by transcriptional reprogramming of fetal gene expression, and histone deacetylases (HDACs) are tightly linked to the regulation of those genes. We previously demonstrated that activation of HDAC2, 1 of the class I HDACs, mediates hypertrophy. Here, we show that casein kinase-2␣1 (CK2␣1)– dependent phosphorylation of HDAC2 S394 is required for the...

The electrophysiology of neonatal rat ventricular myocytes with and without hypertrophy has not been characterized. The α1-adrenergic agonist phenylephrine induced hypertrophy in neonatal rat ventricular myocytes. After 48 h of exposure to 20 μM phenylephrine, cell surface area of hypertrophied myocytes was 44% larger than control. Action potential duration was significantly longer in hypertrop...