Spironolactone suppresses inflammation and prevents L-NAME-induced renal injury in rats.

Chronic inhibition of nitric oxide synthase by N(omega)-nitro- L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME) causes progressive renal injury with systemic hypertension and interstitial macrophage infiltration. We have previously shown that there is local activation of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system in the renal cortex as a major pathogenic feature of macrophage infiltration. In this study, we measured the effects of the aldosterone antagonist, spironolactone, on renal injury in L-NAME-treated male Wistar rats.

Involvement of p53-transactivated Puma in cisplatin-induced renal tubular cell death.

Aims: The tumor suppressor protein p53 plays a critical role as a determinant of cell survival when cells are exposed to various toxic stresses, by preventing growth arrest, replication of damaged DNA, and apoptosis. A novel p53-dependent proapoptotic gene, Puma (p53 upregulated modulator of apoptosis) is thought to participate in this process. Recently, p53 was reported to play an essential role in cisplatin-induced renal tubular cell (RTC) death.

The possibility of a valuable resource of circulating DNA for single nucleotide polymorphisms genotyping: the application of a rapid and simple polymerase chain reaction with melting curve analysis for methyltetrahydrofolate reductase polymorphisms.

Circulating DNA from plasma is easily stored and is a valuable resource to access genetic information indispensable to modern hematology. The aim of the present project was to evaluate the integrity of circulating DNA and to investigate whether such DNA is practically tolerable for genotyping single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) of methyltetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR). We first established a protocol combined with polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and melting curve analysis (MCA) based on the different melting temperatures of heteroduplex amplicons.