Vasopressin type 1A receptor deletion enhances cardiac contractility, β-adrenergic receptor sensitivity and acute cardiac injury-induced dysfunction.

Vasopressin type 1A receptor (V1AR) expression is elevated in chronic human heart failure (HF) and contributes to cardiac dysfunction in animal models, in part via reduced β-adrenergic receptor (βAR) responsiveness. Although cardiac V1AR overexpression and V1AR stimulation are each sufficient to decrease βAR activity, it is unknown whether V1AR inhibition conversely augments βAR responsiveness. Further, although V1AR has been shown to contribute to chronic progression of HF, its impact on cardiac function following acute ischaemic injury has not been reported.

Arginine vasopressin receptor signaling and functional outcomes in heart failure.

Heart failure (HF) continues to be a highly prevalent syndrome, affecting millions of patients and costing billions of dollars in treatment per year in the United States alone. Studies in failing human heart and in transgenic HF models led to the recognition that enhanced neurohormonal signaling plays a causative role in HF progression, and the use of neurohormone receptor antagonists have proven to decrease hospitalization rates. It has also been long recognized that patients with HF have abnormal water retention, hypo-osmolality, and hyponatremia secondary to elevations in the levels of the neurohormone arginine vasopressin (AVP).

Undergraduate virology exercises demonstrate conventional and real-time PCR using commercially available HIV primers and noninfectious target.

It is an extraordinary challenge to offer an undergraduate laboratory course in virology that teaches hands-on, relevant molecular biology techniques using nonpathogenic models of human virus detection. To our knowledge, there exists no inexpensive kits or reagent sets that are appropriate for demonstrating real-time PCR (RT-PCR) in an undergraduate laboratory course in virology. Here we describe simple procedures for student exercises that demonstrate the PCR detection of an HIV target nucleic acid.