What helps and hinders metformin adherence and persistence? A qualitative study exploring the views of people with type 2 diabetes.

Aim: To explore the views of people with type 2 diabetes who had initiated metformin monotherapy about what influences adherence and persistence.

Methods: We recruited participants through primary care, using purposive sampling, and undertook face-to-face, audio-recorded, semi-structured interviews with 10 Māori, 10 Pacific, and 10 non-Māori non-Pacific patients who had started metformin monotherapy for type 2 diabetes within the previous two years. A thematic analysis was undertaken using the Theory of Planned Behaviour as the overall theoretical framework.

The vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)-E encoded by orf virus regulates keratinocyte proliferation and migration and promotes epidermal regeneration.

Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)-A, a key regulator of cutaneous blood vessel formation, appears to have an additional role during wound healing, enhancing re-epithelialization. Orf virus, a zoonotic parapoxvirus, induces proliferative skin lesions that initiate in wounds and are characterized by extensive blood vessel formation, epidermal hyperplasia and rete ridge formation. The vascular changes beneath the lesion are largely due to viral-expressed VEGF-E.

The C-terminus of viral vascular endothelial growth factor-E partially blocks binding to VEGF receptor-1.

Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) family members play important roles in embryonic development and angiogenesis during wound healing and in pathological conditions such as tumor formation. Parapoxviruses express a new member of the VEGF family which is a functional mitogen that specifically activates VEGF receptor (VEGFR)-2 but not VEGFR-1. In this study, we show that deletion from the viral VEGF of a unique C-terminal region increases both VEGFR-1 binding and VEGFR-1-mediated monocyte migration.

Resolution of cervical dysplasia is associated with T-cell proliferative responses to human papillomavirus type 16 E2.

The 'high-risk' human papillomaviruses (HPVs) cause persistent infections of the anogenital region that may resolve spontaneously following activation of a protective immune response. The aim of this study was to determine whether cell-mediated immunity (CMI) to the early protein E2 was associated with disease regression and to establish whether E2 CMI and antibodies to L1 virus-like particles (VLPs) were associated markers of immunity to HPV. Lymphoproliferative responses to histidine-tagged E2 and antibody responses to VLPs were measured in patients with persistent cervical dysplasia, those whose disease had recently resolved and normal controls.

Bovine papular stomatitis virus encodes a functionally distinct VEGF that binds both VEGFR-1 and VEGFR-2.

Bovine papular stomatitis virus (BPSV), a member of the genus Parapoxvirus, causes proliferative dermatitis in cattle and humans. Other species of the genus cause similar lesions, the nature of which has been attributed, at least in part, to a viral-encoded vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) that induces vascularization and dermal oedema through VEGF receptor-2 (VEGFR-2). The results of this study showed that BPSV strain V660 encodes a novel VEGF and that the predicted BPSV protein showed only 33-52% amino acid identity to VEGFs encoded by the other species of the genus.

Parapoxvirus of red deer in New Zealand encodes a variant of viral vascular endothelial growth factor.

Parapoxvirus of red deer in New Zealand (PVNZ), a species of the Parapoxvirus genus, causes scabby lesions on the skin and the velvet of red deer. The three other species of the genus have each been shown to encode homologs of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). We report here that PVNZ strain RD86 also encodes a VEGF and that the predicted PVNZ protein shows only 37-54% amino acid identity to VEGFs encoded by the other species of the genus.