Metabolic profiling of serum using Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography and the LTQ-Orbitrap mass spectrometry system.

Advances in analytical instrumentation can provide significant advantages to the volume and quality of biological knowledge acquired in metabolomic investigations. The interfacing of sub-2 microm liquid chromatography (UPLC ACQUITY) and LTQ-Orbitrap mass spectrometry systems provides many theoretical advantages. The applicability of the interfaced systems was investigated using a simple 11-component metabolite mix and a complex mammalian biofluid, serum.

Higher risk of offspring schizophrenia following antenatal maternal exposure to severe adverse life events.

Context: Most societies believe that a mother's psychological state can influence her unborn baby. Severe adverse life events during pregnancy have been consistently associated with an elevated risk of low birth weight and prematurity. Such events during the first trimester have also been associated with risk of congenital malformations.

Review on hyperemesis gravidarum.

Hyperemesis gravidarum is severe, intractable nausea and vomiting affecting 0.3-2% of pregnancies. It has a complex multifactorial aetiology.

Phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitors and omental and placental small artery function in normal pregnancy and pre-eclampsia.

Objectives: In pre-eclampsia (PE), endothelium-dependent function of myometrial small arteries is markedly attenuated. The residual PE response is wholly NO mediated. We have previously demonstrated that PDE5 inhibition can improve endothelial function in myometrial small arteries from women with PE.

Excessive stimulation of poly(ADP-ribosyl)ation contributes to endothelial dysfunction in pre-eclampsia.

1. Pre-eclampsia is a serious pregnancy disorder associated with widespread activation of the maternal vascular endothelium. Recent evidence implicates a role for oxidative stress in the aetiology of this condition.

Effects of a phosphodiesterase-5 (PDE5) inhibitor on endothelium-dependent relaxation of myometrial small arteries.

Objective: In preeclampsia, endothelium-dependent function is markedly aberrant. Myometrial resistance arteries from women with preeclampsia show a minimal, wholly nitric oxide-mediated, bradykinin-induced relaxation. Our aim was to test that phosphodiesterase 5 (PDE5) inhibition could improve endothelium-dependent function in preeclampsia.

Vasoactive effects of neurokinin B on human blood vessels.

Objectives: Preeclampsia (PE) is a multisystem disease unique to human pregnancy. Abnormal placentation results in placental hypoperfusion leading to the secretion of a factor(s) by the placenta. Our aim was to investigate whether neurokinin B (NKB) is the circulating factor associated with PE.

The role of gap junctions in mediating endothelium-dependent responses to bradykinin in myometrial small arteries isolated from pregnant women.

Endothelium-dependent responses were assessed in myometrial small arteries isolated from pregnant women, using pressure myography. Responses to bradykinin were unaffected by the combined presence of the nitric oxide synthase (NOS) inhibitor, N-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME, 100 micro M) and the cyclo-oxygenase inhibitor, indomethacin (10 micro M). The additional presence of clotrimazole (50 micro M) attenuated, but did not abolish, vasodilator responses to bradykinin.

Differential mechanisms of endothelium-dependent vasodilator responses in human myometrial small arteries in normal pregnancy and pre-eclampsia.

Pre-eclampsia is a pregnancy-specific disorder associated with hypertension and proteinuria, characterized by alterations in endothelial cell function. In the present study we have compared responses to the endothelium-dependent vasodilator, bradykinin, in small myometrial arteries from normal pregnant and non-pregnant women and women with pre-eclampsia, in order to assess the relative contributions of nitric oxide, endothelium-derived hyperpolarizing factor (EDHF) and prostanoids in mediating endothelium-dependent vasodilatation. Bradykinin-induced concentration-dependent relaxation in arteries isolated from the three subject groups did not differ with regard to sensitivity or maximum response.