Central sensitization associated with low fetal hemoglobin levels in adults with sickle cell anemia.

Background And Aims: Pain is the hallmark of sickle cell anemia (SCA), presenting as recurrent acute events or chronic pain. Central sensitization, or enhanced excitability of the central nervous system, alters pain processing and contributes to the maintenance of chronic pain. Individuals with SCA demonstrate enhanced sensitivity to painful stimuli however central mechanisms of pain have not been fully explored.

Prospective study of serum cysteine and cysteinylglycine and cancer of the head and neck, esophagus, and stomach in a cohort of male smokers.

Background: The nonessential amino acid cysteine is known to be involved in many antioxidant and anticarcinogenic pathways. Cysteinylglycine is a pro-oxidant metabolite of glutathione and a precursor of cysteine.

Objective: To examine the relation between serum cysteine and cysteinylglycine and risk of gastric adenocarcinomas, esophageal squamous cell carcinomas, and head and neck squamous cell carcinomas, we conducted a nested case-control study within the Alpha-Tocopherol, Beta-Carotene Cancer Prevention study of male Finnish smokers aged 50-69 y at baseline.

A GCH1 haplotype confers sex-specific susceptibility to pain crises and altered endothelial function in adults with sickle cell anemia.

GTP cyclohydrolase (GCH1) is rate limiting for tetrahydrobiopterin (BH4) synthesis, where BH4 is a cofactor for nitric oxide (NO) synthases and aromatic hydroxylases. GCH1 polymorphisms are implicated in the pathophysiology of pain, but have not been investigated in African populations. We examined GCH1 and pain in sickle cell anemia where GCH1 rs8007267 was a risk factor for pain crises in discovery (n = 228; odds ratio [OR] 2.

Introduction to next-generation nucleic acid sequencing in cardiovascular disease research.

The identification of new genomic paradigms in lipoprotein and cardiovascular diseases will be accelerated by the application of the recent technological advances in nucleic acid sequencing. Presently, large-scale genomics facilities are equipped to accomplish this objective with a combination of "next-generation" DNA sequencing chemistries, largely focused on assembling massively parallel sequence reads corresponding to complete genes, entire exomes, or whole genomes from populations of individuals. In the future, individual laboratories will also use this emerging technology for focused genomic studies with the use of a combination of next-generation sequencing and automated Sanger sequencing.