Outcomes after heart transplantation in patients with and without pretransplant renal dysfunction.

Objective: To compare long-term survival and incidence of ESRD between patients with and without preoperative renal dysfunction following heart transplantation.

Design: Fifty consecutive patients with preoperative estimated GFR < or = than 50 ml/min were compared with 50 age-matched patients with estimated GFR > or = than 80 ml/min who underwent heart transplantation between 1994 and 1998. We investigated two primary outcomes: death and development of ESRD.

Characterization of membrane rafts isolated from rat sertoli cell cultures: caveolin and flotillin-1 content.

Membrane rafts from Sertoli cell cultures were isolated as detergent-insoluble glycosphingolipid-enriched (DIG) fractions on the basis of their enriched content of glycosphingolipids and cholesterol and the resulting insolubility in 1% Triton X-100 and their low buoyant density. Because lipid rafts have been implicated in numerous cell functions, including cell signaling and sites for actin/membrane attachment, studies were initiated to characterize Sertoli cell rafts. This study reports the distribution of the raft structural proteins, caveolin and flotillin-1, implicated in raft microdomain organization.