Gene expression manipulation is pivotal in therapeutic approaches for various diseases. Non-viral delivery systems present a safer alternative to viral vectors, with reduced immunogenicity and toxicity. However, their effectiveness in promoting endosomal escape, a crucial step in gene transfer, remains limited.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAm J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol
February 2025
Although previous work has demonstrated that oral contraceptive pill (OCP) use does not affect resting muscle sympathetic nerve activity (MSNA), growing evidence indicates that it attenuates neurogenic vasoconstriction. Despite these advances, it remains unknown how OCP use affects the ability of MSNA to dynamically control vascular tone and arterial blood pressure (BP) on a beat-by-beat basis. Thus, we tested the hypothesis that, compared with naturally menstruating females (MC), those using OCPs will exhibit attenuated sympathetic vascular transduction at rest.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To characterize the spatio-temporal association between features of the built environment and subclinical liver disease.
Design: We used data from a large community-based population, the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (2000-2002, N = 5542) with linked historical residential data that characterized past exposure to alcohol outlets (bars and liquor stores), healthy foods stores, and physical activity facilities (1990-2001). We examined whether and how past residential relate to hepatic steatosis (proxied by liver attenuation measured using computed tomography, with lower attenuation indicating higher hepatic steatosis).
Cyclic guanosine monophosphate (GMP)-adenosine monophosphate (AMP) synthase (cGAS) is an enzyme sensor of double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) that serves to trigger activation of the cGAS-stimulator of interferon genes (STING) pathway. Excessive activation of this pathway has been demonstrated to contribute to various forms of inflammatory disease. As such, cGAS has arisen as a potential therapeutic target with broad potential applications.
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