C-reactive protein correlates with tissue oxygen availability in patients with stable COPD.

Background: Arterial oxygen tension, oxygen delivery to tissue, and systemic inflammation are recognized as pivotal factors in the progression of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). However, interconnections between systemic inflammation and tissue oxygen availability are scantly investigated. Tissue oxygen availability depends on arterial PaO2, oxygen concentration, hemoglobin oxygen affinity (P50), and hemoglobin oxygen binding capacity (ceHb).

Stromal cell-derived factor-1alpha (SDF-1alpha/CXCL12) stimulates ovarian cancer cell growth through the EGF receptor transactivation.

Ovarian cancer (OC) is the leading cause of death in gynecologic diseases in which there is evidence for a complex chemokine network. Chemokines are a family of proteins that play an important role in tumor progression influencing cell proliferation, angiogenic/angiostatic processes, cell migration and metastasis, and, finally, regulating the immune cells recruitment into the tumor mass. We previously demonstrated that astrocytes and glioblastoma cells express both the chemokine receptor CXCR4 and its ligand stromal cell-derived factor-1 (SDF-1), and that SDF-1alpha treatment induced cell proliferation, supporting the hypothesis that chemokines may play an important role in tumor cells' growth in vitro.

alpha-Glycerylphosphorylethanolamine rescues astrocytes from mitochondrial impairment and oxidative stress induced by amyloid beta-peptides.

The present work shows that alpha-glycerylphosphorylethanolamine (alpha-GPE) is effective in recovering astrocytes from mitochondrial membrane integrity and potential derangement and cellular oxidative stress that occur under amyloid beta-peptides-induced reactive gliosis.alpha-Glycerylphosphorylethanolamine (alpha-GPE), a new compound with nootropic properties, known to improve in vivo the learning and memory processes, has been tested for its protective properties on an in vitro model of degeneration. Rat primary astrocytic cultures treated with two amyloid-derived peptides, Abeta((1-40)) and Abeta(3(pE)-42), showed a marked reduction of the mitochondrial redox activity and membrane potential, together with an increase of oxidative species production.