Lung volume indices predict morbidity in smokers with preserved spirometry.

Background: Abnormal lung volumes that reflect air trapping are common in COPD. However, their significance in smokers with preserved spirometry (normal FEV to FVC ratio) is unclear.

Methods: Using the Veterans Administration Informatics and Computing Infrastructure database, we identified 7479 patients at risk for COPD (ever smokers >40 years of age without restrictive lung disease) who had preserved spirometry and concomitant lung volume measurements, and examined their subsequent health records for clinical diagnoses of COPD, healthcare utilisation, follow-up spirometry and mortality.

Modeling vascular inflammation and atherogenicity after inhalation of ambient levels of ozone: exploratory lessons from transcriptomics.

Background: Epidemiologic studies have linked inhalation of air pollutants such as ozone to cardiovascular mortality. Human exposure studies have shown that inhalation of ambient levels of ozone causes airway and systemic inflammation and an imbalance in sympathetic/parasympathetic tone.

Methods: To explore molecular mechanisms through which ozone inhalation contributes to cardiovascular mortality, we compared transcriptomics data previously obtained from bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) cells obtained from healthy subjects after inhalational exposure to ozone (200 ppb for 4 h) to those of various cell samples from 11 published studies of patients with atherosclerotic disease using the Nextbio genomic data platform.

Inflammatory and repair pathways induced in human bronchoalveolar lavage cells with ozone inhalation.

Background: Inhalation of ambient levels of ozone causes airway inflammation and epithelial injury.

Methods: To examine the responses of airway cells to ozone-induced oxidative injury, 19 subjects (7 with asthma) were exposed to clean air (0ppb), medium (100ppb), and high (200ppb) ambient levels of ozone for 4h on three separate occasions in a climate-controlled chamber followed by bronchoscopy with bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) 24h later. BAL cell mRNA expression was examined using Affymetrix GeneChip Microarray.

Regenerative capacity of old muscle stem cells declines without significant accumulation of DNA damage.

The performance of adult stem cells is crucial for tissue homeostasis but their regenerative capacity declines with age, leading to failure of multiple organs. In skeletal muscle this failure is manifested by the loss of functional tissue, the accumulation of fibrosis, and reduced satellite cell-mediated myogenesis in response to injury. While recent studies have shown that changes in the composition of the satellite cell niche are at least in part responsible for the impaired function observed with aging, little is known about the effects of aging on the intrinsic properties of satellite cells.