Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a chronic lung disease resulting in irreversible scarring within the lungs. However, the lack of biomarkers that enable real-time assessment of disease activity remains a challenge in providing efficient clinical decision-making and optimal patient care in IPF. Fibronectin (FN) is highly expressed in fibroblastic foci of the IPF lung where active extracellular matrix (ECM) deposition occurs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: In humans, arterial grayscale ultrasound texture features independently predict adverse cardiovascular disease (CVD) events and change with medical interventions. We performed this study to examine how grayscale ultrasound texture features and elastin fibers change in plaque-free segments of the arterial wall in a murine model prone to atherosclerosis.
Methods: A total of 10 Apoe mice ( = 5 male, = 5 female) were imaged at 6, 16, and 24 weeks of age.
Objectives: Non-invasive methods for monitoring arterial health and identifying early injury to optimize treatment for patients are desirable. The objective of this study was to demonstrate the use of an adaptive Bayesian regularized Lagrangian carotid strain imaging (ABR-LCSI) algorithm for monitoring of atherogenesis in a murine model and examine associations between the ultrasound strain measures and histology.
Methods: Ultrasound radiofrequency (RF) data were acquired from both the right and left common carotid artery (CCA) of 10 (5 male and 5 female) ApoE mice at 6, 16 and 24 wk.
Unlabelled: Neurotensin receptor 1 (NTSR1) can stimulate tumor proliferation through neurotensin (NTS) activation and are overexpressed by a variety of cancers. The high binding affinity of NTS/NTSR1 makes radiolabeled NTS derivatives interesting for cancer diagnosis and staging. Internalization of NTS/NTSR1 also suggests therapeutic application with high LET alpha particles and low energy electrons.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAdaptive Bayesian regularized cardiac strain imaging (ABR-CSI) uses raw radiofrequency signals to estimate myocardial wall contractility as a surrogate measure of relative tissue elasticity incorporating regularization in the Bayesian sense. We determined the feasibility of using ABR-CSI -derived strain for in vivo longitudinal monitoring of cardiac remodeling in a murine ischemic injury model (myocardial infarction [MI] and ischemia-reperfusion [IR]) and validated the findings against ground truth histology. We randomly stratified 30 BALB/CJ mice (17 females, 13 males, median age = 10 wk) into three surgical groups (MI = 10, IR = 12, sham = 8) and imaged pre-surgery (baseline) and 1, 2, 7 and 14 d post-surgery using a pre-clinical high-frequency ultrasound system (VisualSonics Vevo 2100).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAn adaptive Bayesian regularized cardiac strain imaging (ABR-CSI) algorithm for in vivo murine myocardial function assessment is presented. We report on 31 BALB/CJ mice (n = 17 females, n = 14 males), randomly stratified into three surgical groups: myocardial infarction (MI, n = 10), ischemia-reperfusion (IR, n = 13) and control (sham, n = 8) imaged pre-surgery (baseline- BL), and 1, 2, 7 and 14 days post-surgery using a high frequency ultrasound imaging system (Vevo 2100). End-systole (ES) radial and longitudinal strain images were used to generate cardiac fibrosis maps using binary thresholding.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIEEE Open J Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control
November 2021
Cardiac strain imaging (CSI) plays a critical role in the detection of myocardial motion abnormalities. Displacement estimation is an important processing step to ensure the accuracy and precision of derived strain tensors. In this paper, we propose and implement Spatiotemporal Bayesian regularization (STBR) algorithms for two-dimensional (2-D) normalized cross-correlation (NCC) based multi-level block matching along with incorporation into a Lagrangian cardiac strain estimation framework.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAnnu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc
November 2021
A cardiac strain imaging framework with adaptive Bayesian regularization (ABR) is proposed for in vivo assessment of murine cardiac function. The framework uses ultrasound (US) radio-frequency data collected with a high frequency (f = 30MHz) imaging system and a multi-level block matching algorithm with ABR to derive inter-frame cardiac displacements. Lagrangian cardiac strain (radial, e and longitudinal, e) tensors were derived by segmenting the myocardial wall starting at the ECG R-wave and accumulating interframe deformations over a cardiac cycle.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSignificance: Photoacoustic imaging (PAI) can be used to infer molecular information about myocardial health non-invasively in vivo using optical excitation at ultrasonic spatial resolution. For clinical and preclinical linear array imaging systems, conventional delay-and-sum (DAS) beamforming is typically used. However, DAS cardiac PA images are prone to artifacts such as diffuse quasi-static clutter with temporally varying noise-reducing myocardial signal specificity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAccumulating evidence shows that androgen receptor (AR) activation and signaling plays a key role in growth and progression in all stages of prostate cancer, even under low androgen levels or in the absence of androgen in the castration-resistant prostate cancer. Sustained activation of AR under androgen-deprived conditions may be due to its interaction with co-activators, such as p52 NF-κB subunit, and/or an increase in its stability by phosphorylation that delays its degradation. Here we identified a specific inhibitor of AR/p52 interaction, AR/p52-02, via a high throughput screen based on the reconstitution of Gaussia Luciferase.
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