Hatchery and wild larval lake sturgeon experience effects of captivity on stress reactivity, behavior and predation risk.

Reintroduction programs are important tools for wildlife conservation. However, captive rearing environments may lead to maladaptive behavior and physiological alterations that reduce survival probability after release. For captive rearing programs that raise individuals captured from the wild during early ontogeny for later release, there is a lack of information about when during ontogeny the detrimental effects of captive rearing may become evident.

The effects of angiotensin II on the coupled microstructural and biomechanical response of C57BL/6 mouse aorta.

Rationale: Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is a complex disease that leads to a localized dilation of the infrarenal aorta, the rupture of which is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Animal models of AAA can be used to study how changes in the microstructural and biomechanical behavior of aortic tissues develop as disease progresses in these animals. We chose here to investigate the effect of angiotensin II (AngII) in C57BL/6 mice as a first step towards understanding how such changes occur in the established ApoE(-/-) AngII infused mouse model of AAA.

Cardiac patch constructed from human fibroblasts attenuates reduction in cardiac function after acute infarct.

The current experiments used a scaffold-based, three-dimensional, human dermal fibroblast culture (3DFC) as a cardiac patch to stimulate revascularization and preserve left ventricular (LV) function of the infarcted LV in severe combined immunodeficient (SCID) mice. The 3DFC contains viable cells that secrete angiogenic growth factors and has been previously shown to stimulate angiogenesis. The hypothesis tested was that a 3DFC cardiac patch would attenuate a reduction in LV function of infarcted hearts.