Publications by authors named "Alexandra Blant"

Hypoxia exerts broad effects on cardiomyocyte function and viability, ranging from altered metabolism and mitochondrial physiology to apoptotic or necrotic cell death. The transcriptional coactivator peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma coactivator 1-alpha (PGC-1α) is a key regulator of cardiomyocyte metabolism and mitochondrial function and is down-regulated in hypoxia; however, the underlying mechanism is incompletely resolved. Using primary rat cardiomyocytes coupled with electrophoretic mobility shift and luciferase assays, we report that hypoxia impaired mitochondrial energetics and resulted in an increase in nuclear localization of the Nuclear Factor-κB (NF-κB) p65 subunit, and the association of p65 with the PGC-1α proximal promoter.

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Background: Genomic regions of autozygosity (ROA) arise when an individual is homozygous for haplotypes inherited identical-by-descent from ancestors shared by both parents. Over the past decade, they have gained importance for understanding evolutionary history and the genetic basis of complex diseases and traits. However, methods to infer ROA in dense genotype data have not evolved in step with advances in genome technology that now enable us to rapidly create large high-resolution genotype datasets, limiting our ability to investigate their constituent ROA patterns.

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Summary: Runs of homozygosity (ROH) are important genomic features that manifest when identical-by-descent haplotypes are inherited from parents. Their length distributions and genomic locations are informative about population history and they are useful for mapping recessive loci contributing to both Mendelian and complex disease risk. Here, we present software implementing a model-based method ( Pemberton et al.

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The transcriptional coactivator peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-γ coactivator-1α (PGC-1α) is a key determinant of cardiac metabolic function by regulating genes governing fatty acid oxidation and mitochondrial biogenesis. PGC-1α expression is reduced in many cardiac diseases, and gene deletion of PGC-1α results in impaired cardiomyocyte metabolism and function. Reduced fuel supply generally induces PGC-1α expression, but the specific role of oxygen deprivation is unclear, and the mechanisms governing PGC-1α gene expression in these situations are poorly understood.

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Originally identified as mediators of cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) and protein kinase A signaling, A-kinase anchor proteins (AKAPs) are now recognized as a diverse family of molecular scaffolds capable of interacting with many other proteins. Members of the AKAP family within the heart can take on either pro- or anti-hypertrophic roles by interacting with a myriad of protein kinases and phosphatases in the process. AKAPs often form the core of large signaling complexes (or signalosomes) that allow multiple pathways to converge and functionally intertwine.

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