Oxidised Albumin Levels in Plasma and Skeletal Muscle as Biomarkers of Disease Progression and Treatment Efficacy in Dystrophic Mice.

Redox modifications to the plasma protein albumin have the potential to be used as biomarkers of disease progression and treatment efficacy in pathologies associated with inflammation and oxidative stress. One such pathology is Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), a fatal childhood disease characterised by severe muscle wasting. We have previously shown in the mouse model of DMD that plasma albumin thiol oxidation is increased; therefore, the first aim of this paper was to establish that albumin thiol oxidation in plasma reflects levels within muscle tissue.

Antenatal creatine supplementation reduces persistent fetal lung inflammation and oxidative stress in an ovine model of chorioamnionitis.

Chorioamnionitis is a common antecedent of preterm birth and induces inflammation and oxidative stress in the fetal lungs. Reducing inflammation and oxidative stress in the fetal lungs may improve respiratory outcomes in preterm infants. Creatine is an organic acid with known anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties.

Dimethyl fumarate modulates the dystrophic disease program following short-term treatment.

New medicines are urgently required to treat the fatal neuromuscular disease Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). Dimethyl fumarate (DMF) is a potent immunomodulatory small molecule nuclear erythroid 2-related factor 2 activator with current clinical utility in the treatment of multiple sclerosis and psoriasis that could be effective for DMD and rapidly translatable. Here, we tested 2 weeks of daily 100 mg/kg DMF versus 5 mg/kg standard-care prednisone (PRED) treatment in juvenile mdx mice with early symptomatic DMD.

Evaluating Glyph Design for Showing Large-Magnitude-Range Quantum Spins.

We present experimental results to explore a form of bivariate glyphs for representing large-magnitude-range vectors. The glyphs meet two conditions: (1) two visual dimensions are separable; and (2) one of the two visual dimensions uses a categorical representation (e.g.

Muscle Pathology in Dystrophic Rats and Zebrafish Is Unresponsive to Taurine Treatment, Compared to the Mouse Model for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.

Inflammation and oxidative stress are strongly implicated in the pathology of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), and the sulphur-containing amino acid taurine ameliorates both and decreases dystropathology in the mouse model for DMD. We therefore further tested taurine as a therapy using dystrophic DMD rats and zebrafish models for DMD that have a more severe dystropathology. However, taurine treatment had little effect on the indices of dystropathology in both these models.