The use of ischemic preconditioning (IPC) to protect the myocardium is usually not effective in elderly patients. The aim of the present study was to design new methods to achieve enhanced myocardial protection, based on the differential role of endogenous adenosine (ADO) and ADO receptors (ARs) in the effects of IPC on young and old animals. An improved New Zealand white rabbit model of ischem...

Other workers have reported that vesicular stomatitis virus makes aberrantly long polyadenylic acid [poly(A)] tracts in the presence of S-adenosylhomocysteine (S-Ado-Hcy). In the work reported in this paper, the effects of various analogues of Sadenosylmethionine (S-Ado-Met) and ATP on polyadenylation in an in vitro transcription system were examined to determine whether S-Ado-Hcy exerted its e...

The substrate stereospecificity of 1- aminocyclopropane -1-carboxylic acid synthase, a pyridoxal phosphate-containing enzyme, from the pericarp tissue of Lycopersicon esculentum (tomatoes) was studied using the various stereoisomers of S-adenosylmethionine (AdoMet) at both the sulfonium pole and the amino acid center. The data indicate that only the naturally occurring isomer (-)Ado-L-Met acts ...

Mechanisms of adenosine (ADO) protection of reperfused myocardium are not fully understood. We tested the hypothesis that ADO (0.1 mM) alleviates ventricular stunning by ADO A(1)-receptor stimulation combined with purine metabolic enhancements. Langendorff guinea pig hearts were stunned at constant left ventricular end-diastolic pressure by low-flow ischemia. Myocardial phosphate metabolites we...

1. Following local vasoconstriction-inducing stimuli, such as the cold pressor test (CPT), significant changes occur in haemodynamics, with a rise in arterial blood pressure and heart rate (HR) due to the activation of the sympathetic nervous system. Among the compensatory mechanisms to local ischaemia, the endogenous nucleoside adenosine (ADO) has been suggested to play a relevant role by cont...

Osteopetrosis (OP) is hereditary X-linked, autosomal recessive (ARO), or autosomal dominant (ADO) skeletal disease. ARO has two subtypes, which are infantile malignant and intermediate type. ARO and X-linked OP have poor clinical outcome. ADO is called adult benign type because of the normal life expectancy, which has type I and type II. Here, the authors present an ADO patient with Chiari type...

Adenosine (ADO), an endogenous regulator of coronary vascular tone, enhances vasorelaxation in the presence of nucleoside transport inhibitors such as dipyridamole. We tested the hypothesis that coronary smooth muscle (CSM) contains a high-affinity transporter for ADO. ADO-mediated relaxation of isolated large and small porcine coronary artery rings was enhanced 12-fold and 3.4-fold, respective...

A live attenuated virus vaccine is being developed to protect against West Nile virus (WN) disease in humans. Previously, it was found that chimeric West Nile/dengue viruses (WN/DEN4 and WN/DEN4Delta30) bearing the membrane precursor and envelope protein genes of WN on a backbone of dengue type 4 virus (DEN4) with or without a deletion of 30 nucleotides (Delta30) in the 3' noncoding region of t...

Increase of blood capillary density at the interface between normal and ischemic tissue after acute MI reduces infarct size and improves cardiac function. Cardiac injury triggers the production of the matricellular component TSP-1, but its role in angiogenesis is not clear, as both anti- and proangiogenic properties have been reported. It is unknown whether TSP-1 is modulated by other factors r...

There are only two known thiol dioxygenase activities in mammals, and they are ascribed to the enzymes cysteine dioxygenase (CDO) and cysteamine (2-aminoethanethiol) dioxygenase (ADO). Although many studies have been dedicated to CDO, resulting in the identification of its gene and even characterization of the tertiary structure of the protein, relatively little is known about cysteamine dioxyg...