Effect of UV Light on Disinfection of Peritoneal Dialysis Catheter Connections.

We evaluated the microbiological performance of an ultraviolet (UV) light-based peritoneal dialysis catheter connection system. The system includes a UV light-generating device combined with a UV transmissive window incorporated into the transfer set. Each UV transparent transfer set was inoculated with 10 μL of cultured inoculum consisting of either S.

Noninvasive imaging of hypoxia-inducible factor-1α gene therapy for myocardial ischemia.

Hypoxia-inducible factor-1 alpha (HIF-1α) gene therapy holds great promise for the treatment of myocardial ischemia. Both preclinical and clinical evaluations of this therapy are underway and can benefit from a vector strategy that allows noninvasive assessment of HIF-1α expression as an objective measure of gene delivery. We have developed a novel bidirectional plasmid vector (pcTnT-HIF-1α-VP2-TSTA-fluc), which employs the cardiac troponin T (cTnT) promoter in conjunction with a two-step transcriptional amplification (TSTA) system to drive the linked expression of a recombinant HIF-1α gene (HIF-1α-VP2) and the firefly luciferase gene (fluc).