Vagal nerve stimulation protects cardiac injury by attenuating mitochondrial dysfunction in a murine burn injury model.

Mitochondria play a central role in the integration and execution of a wide variety of apoptotic signals. In the present study, we examined the deleterious effects of burn injury on heart tissue. We explored the effects of vagal nerve stimulation (VNS) on cardiac injury in a murine burn injury model, with a focus on the protective effect of VNS on mitochondrial dysfunction in heart tissue.

Acute acalculous cholecystitis-like phenotype in scavenger receptor A knock-out mice.

Background: Sepsis is a major health problem in the United States that affects more than three-quarters of a million people every year. Previous studies have shown that scavenger receptor A (Sra), also known as macrophage scavenger receptor 1 (Msr1), is a modifier of interleukin 10 (IL-10) expression after injection of bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Therefore, we investigated the response to sepsis in Sra knock out mice.

Hector Berlioz and other famous artists with opium abuse.

The effect of opium on the creativity and productivity of a famous composer of classical music, an essayist, and poets including Hector Berlioz, Thomas De Quincy, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, and Jean Cocteau, is described. Opium is a narcotic drug prepared from the juice of the unripe seed capsules of the opium poppy. It contains alkaloids such as morphine, codeine, and papaverine.

Hypertonic saline reduces neutrophil-epithelial interactions in vitro and gut tissue damage in a mouse model of colitis.

Transepithelial migration of polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMN) plays a crucial role in inflammatory conditions of the intestine, such as inflammatory bowel diseases. Hypertonic saline (HS) exerts various inhibitory effects on PMN function. We hypothesized that HS could inhibit transepithelial migration of PMN and thereby prevent inflammatory events in experimental colitis.

Physiologic response to hemorrhagic shock depends on rate and means of hemorrhage.

Background: Traditional models of shock classify severity based on the volume of hemorrhage. Clinically, hemorrhage occurs at a variable rate, usually slowing as blood pressure drops; however most animal experimental models use a constant rate of hemorrhage. Our hypothesis was that rapid bleeding followed by slower bleeding using a fixed total volume would result in a greater physiologic insult.

History of diagnostic enzymology: a review of significant investigations.

This review of the history of diagnostic enzymology includes numerous important publications which were published over 70 years ago by outstanding clinical enzymologists throughout the world. The review includes the clinical enzymology of cardiovascular diseases, skeletal muscle diseases, pulmonary diseases, effusions, neurologic diseases, hematologic diseases, pregnancy, pediatric diseases, cancer, pancreatitis, hepatic diseases, bone diseases and cancer of the prostate. The advent of clinical enzymology thus occurred many years ago.

The effects of diseases, drugs, and chemicals on the creativity and productivity of famous sculptors, classic painters, classic music composers, and authors.

Context: Many myths, theories, and speculations exist as to the exact etiology of the diseases, drugs, and chemicals that affected the creativity and productivity of famous sculptors, classic painters, classic music composers, and authors.

Objective: To emphasize the importance of a modern clinical chemistry laboratory and hematology coagulation laboratory in interpreting the basis for the creativity and productivity of various artists.

Design: This investigation analyzed the lives of famous artists, including classical sculptor Benvenuto Cellini; classical sculptor and painter Michelangelo Buonarroti; classic painters Ivar Arosenius, Edvard Munch, and Vincent Van Gogh; classic music composer Louis Hector Berlioz; and English essayist Thomas De Quincey.

Inhibition of enteral enzymes by enteroclysis with nafamostat mesilate reduces neutrophil activation and transfusion requirements after hemorrhagic shock.

Background: The gut origin of the inflammatory response in trauma patients has been difficult to define. "In vivo" generation of neutrophil-activating factors by gut proteases may be a cause of multiorgan failure after hemorrhagic shock, and can be prevented with the serine protease inhibitor nafamostat mesilate (Futhan). The objective of this study was to determine the effect of nafamostat mesilate given by enteroclysis on enteric serine protease activity, neutrophil activation, and transfusion requirements during hemorrhagic shock.

A new animal model for pulmonary hypertension based on the overexpression of a single gene, angiopoietin-1.

Background: Angiopoietin-1 gene expression in human pulmonary hypertensive lungs is directly proportional to increasing pulmonary vascular resistance. We hypothesized that targeted overexpresssion of angiopoietin-1 in the lung would cause persistent pulmonary hypertension in an animal model.

Methods: We injected 2 x 10(10) genomic particles of adeno-associated virus-angiopoietin-1 (AAV-Ang-1) into the right ventricular outflow tract of 30 Fischer rats while using adeno-associated virus-lacZ (AAV-lacZ) injected rats and carrier-injected rats as our control groups.

Induction of pulmonary hypertension by an angiopoietin 1/TIE2/serotonin pathway.

Smooth muscle cell proliferation around small pulmonary vessels is essential to the pathogenesis of pulmonary hypertension. Here we describe a molecular mechanism and animal model for this vascular pathology. Rodents engineered to express angiopoietin 1 (Ang-1) constitutively in the lung develop severe pulmonary hypertension.

Direct comparison of efficiency and stability of gene transfer into the mammalian heart using adeno-associated virus versus adenovirus vectors.

Objective: Recent gene therapy strategies have relied on the use of adenovirus or plasmid as vehicles for gene delivery to the heart. These approaches have been limited by low transduction frequencies and transient transgene expression. We sought to determine whether adeno-associated virus produces more stable, higher efficiency gene expression in the rodent heart than did previous conventional methods.

Visualization of risk-area myocardium as a high-intensity, hyperenhanced "hot spot" by myocardial contrast echocardiography following coronary reperfusion: quantitative analysis.

Objectives: We examined whether delayed post-injection imaging of a new ultrasound contrast agent (BR-14) could produce prolonged opacification and hyperenhancement of myocardium subjected to coronary occlusion/reperfusion.

Background: We hypothesized that ultrasound exposure destroyed BR-14 and eliminated visualization of sustained myocardial opacification from retained microbubbles.

Methods: We studied eight open-chest dogs with 3 h of left anterior descending coronary artery (LAD) occlusion followed by 3 h of reperfusion.

Signaling molecules in nonfamilial pulmonary hypertension.

Background: Biochemical, genetic, and clinical evidence indicates that smooth-muscle proliferation around small pulmonary vessels is an essential part of the pathogenesis of pulmonary hypertension. Mutations in the bone morphogenetic protein receptor type 2 (BMPR2) have been linked to familial cases of pulmonary hypertension, but the molecular basis of the common nonfamilial forms is unknown.

Methods: We evaluated the pattern of expression of angiopoietin-1, a protein involved in the recruitment of smooth-muscle cells around blood vessels; TIE2, the endothelial-specific receptor for angiopoietin-1; and bone morphogenetic protein receptor type 1A (BMPR1A) and BMPR2 in lung-biopsy specimens from patients with pulmonary hypertension and from normotensive control patients.