The mechanisms of adaptation of uterine artery vascular tone to pregnancy are not fully understood. The present study tested the hypothesis that pregnancy decreases the PKC-mediated Ca(2+) sensitivity of the contractile process and attenuates myogenic tone in resistance-sized uterine arteries. In pressurized uterine arteries from nonpregnant (NPUA) and near-term pregnant (PUA) sheep, we measure...

PURPOSE We investigated the association of the prostatic urethral angle (PUA) with peak urinary flow rate (Qmax) and the severity of lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) on the aging male. We also evaluated the effect of the PUA on the treatment efficacy of tamsulosin on men with LUTS. MATERIALS AND METHODS The records were obtained from a prospective database for first-visit male patients wit...

A high plasma urate concentration (PUA), related to loss of urate oxidase in evolution, is postulated to protect humans from oxidative injury. This hypothesis has broad clinical relevance, but support rests largely on in vitro data and epidemiologic associations. Pegloticase therapy generates H(2)O(2) while depleting urate, offering an in vivo test of the antioxidant hypothesis. We show that er...

Nitric oxide (NO) and reactive oxygen species (ROS) production was investigated in the marine diatom, Skeletonema marinoi (SM), exposed to 2E,4E/Z-decadienal (DECA), 2E,4E/Z-octadienal (OCTA), 2E,4E/Z-heptadienal (HEPTA) and a mix of these last two (MIX). When exposed to polyunsaturated aldehydes (PUA), a decrease of NO was observed, proportional to the PUA concentration (85% of the initial lev...

The goal of the present study was to elucidate the mechanisms of immunoregulation by which dietary punicic acid (PUA) prevents or ameliorates experimental inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The expression of PPARγ and δ, their responsive genes and pro-inflammatory cytokines was assayed in the colonic mucosa. Immune cell-specific PPARγ null, PPARδ knockout and wild-type mice were treated with PUA...

Plasma uric acid (PUA) is associated with metabolic, cardiovascular, and renal abnormalities in patients with type 2 diabetes but is less well understood in type 1 diabetes (T1D). Our aim was to compare PUA levels and fractional uric acid excretion (FEUA) in patients with T1D vs. healthy controls (HC) during euglycemia and hyperglycemia. PUA, FEUA, blood pressure (BP), glomerular filtration rat...

Cortisol potentiated norepinephrine (NE)-mediated contractions in ovine uterine arteries (UA). We tested the hypothesis that cortisol regulated alpha(1)-adrenoceptor-mediated pharmacomechanical coupling differentially in nonpregnant UA (NUA) and pregnant UA (PUA). Cortisol (10 ng/ml for 24 h) significantly increased contractile coupling efficiency of alpha(1)-adrenoceptors in NUA, but increased...

Merrill et al. (1) find “untenable” the hypothesis that speakers of Proto-Uto-Aztecan (PUA) were maize cultivators in or near Mesoamerica. Linguistic evidence supporting this hypothesis was first assembled in ref. 2 and additional evidence is cited here. Of central importance to the proposal is that a word for maize, **sunu, reconstructs for PUA. Although reflexes of the latter word were not re...

Allelopathy is wide spread among marine phytoplankton, including diatoms, which can produce cytotoxic secondary metabolites such as polyunsaturated aldehydes (PUA). Most studies on diatom-produced PUA have been dedicated to their inhibitory effects on reproduction and development of marine invertebrates. However, little information exists on their impact on key herbivores in the ocean, microzoo...