A new mouse unilateral model of diffuse alveolar damage of the lung.

Objective And Design: The existing biological models of diffuse alveolar damage (DAD) in mice have many shortcomings. To offset these shortcomings, we have proposed a simple, nonsurgical, and reproducible method of unilateral total damage of the left lung in ICR mice. This model is based on the intrabronchial administration of a mixture of bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS) from the cell wall of S.

[Detection of Autoantibodies Against the 1-Adrenergic Receptor in the Sera of Patients via the Competitive cell-Based Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay].

Objective: This study aimed to assess the level of anti-1-adrenergic receptor autoantibodies in patients with ventricular arrhythmias with no signs of organic heart disease and with presence of cardiovascular pathology in comparison with a group of healthy volunteers.

Material And Methods: The study included 44 patients with ventricular arrhythmias with no signs of organic heart disease ("idiopathic"), 34 patients with diagnosed dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) of inflammatory origin, 35 patients with coronary heart disease and ventricular arrhythmias, 12patients with coronary heart disease with no ventricular arrhythmias, and 19 healthy volunteers (control group). The level of autoantibodies against the 1-adrenergic receptor was determined by the developed competitive cell-based enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and by the standard ELISA using peptides corresponding to the second extracellular loop of the 1-adrenergic receptor.

Combined transfer of human VEGF165 and HGF genes renders potent angiogenic effect in ischemic skeletal muscle.

Increased interest in development of combined gene therapy emerges from results of recent clinical trials that indicate good safety yet unexpected low efficacy of "single-gene" administration. Multiple studies showed that vascular endothelial growth factor 165 aminoacid form (VEGF165) and hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) can be used for induction of angiogenesis in ischemic myocardium and skeletal muscle. Gene transfer system composed of a novel cytomegalovirus-based (CMV) plasmid vector and codon-optimized human VEGF165 and HGF genes combined with intramuscular low-voltage electroporation was developed and tested in vitro and in vivo.

[Polymorphism C1444T of C-reactive protein gene and C-reactive protein concentration in blood serum of healthy people and patients with myocardial infarction].

Unlabelled: CRP level is a risk factor of development of ischemic heart disease (IHD) and acute myocardial infarction (MI) in healthy people, while in patients with cardiovascular diseases it is a marker of unfavorable prognosis. It has been shown in recent investigations that individual variations of plasma CRP levels to a great extent are genetically determined. These data constitute a basis for the study of associations of polymorphic variants of the CRP gene with risk of MI in healthy people as well as with unfavorable prognosis in IHD patients.

[Complex analsis of association of inflammation genes with myocardial infarction].

Carriage frequencies of alleles and genotypes of functionally important polymorphous loci of some inflammation genes: proinflammatory cytokines genes IL-6, LTA and TNF, anti-inflammatory cytokine gene TGFB1 and CC chemokine receptor 5 gene CCR5 were analyzed in the patients with myocardial infarction (MI) of Russian ethnic descent (199 cases) and in the control group of the same ethnic descent (142 controls). Complex analysis using APSampler algorithm revealed MI association with carriage of all polymorphous variants studied, as individual risk factors (insertion/deletion polymorphism of CCR5 and SNP G252A LTA) or only in combination with other alleles/genotypes. Carriage of bi- or triallelic combinations was associated with MI more significantly than carriage of any their subsets: single alleles or allele pairs.