[A woman with a tingling sensation in the hand].

A 57-year-old woman presented herself in the plastic surgery department's outpatient clinic at our hospital. She had been experiencing a tingling sensation of the first three digits of the left hand. Our first differential diagnosis was a classic carpal tunnel syndrome.

Analysis of Cre-mediated genetic deletion of in cardiomyocytes of young mice.

Administration of active growth differentiation factor 11 (GDF11) to aged mice can reduce cardiac hypertrophy, and low serum levels of GDF11 measured together with the related protein, myostatin (also known as GDF8), predict future morbidity and mortality in coronary heart patients. Using mice with a loxP-flanked ("floxed") allele of and -driven expression of Cre recombinase to delete in cardiomyocytes, we tested the hypothesis that cardiac-specific deficiency might lead to cardiac hypertrophy in young adulthood. We observed that targeted deletion of in cardiomyocytes does not cause cardiac hypertrophy but rather leads to left ventricular dilation when compared with control mice carrying only the or -floxed alleles, suggesting a possible etiology for dilated cardiomyopathy.