Novel GSK-3β Inhibitor Neopetroside A Protects Against Murine Myocardial Ischemia/Reperfusion Injury.

Recent trends suggest novel natural compounds as promising treatments for cardiovascular disease. The authors examined how neopetroside A, a natural pyridine nucleoside containing an α-glycoside bond, regulates mitochondrial metabolism and heart function and investigated its cardioprotective role against ischemia/reperfusion injury. Neopetroside A treatment maintained cardiac hemodynamic status and mitochondrial respiration capacity and significantly prevented cardiac fibrosis in murine models.

Exercise training causes a partial improvement through increasing testosterone and eNOS for erectile function in middle-aged rats.

Purpose: Aging changes the balance of sex hormones and causes endothelial dysfunction in the penis, both of which are important determinants of erectile dysfunction (ED). The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether exercise training could protect against erectile dysfunction by increasing serum testosterone and penile eNOS levels in aging rats.

Methods: A total of 14 young (2-month-old) and 14 middle-aged (18-month-old) Sprague Dawley rats were randomly assigned to either untrained control (young control, [YC], middle-aged control, [MC]) or endurance exercise-trained (young exercise, [YE], middle-aged exercise, [ME]) groups with seven rats per group.

Current and upcoming mitochondrial targets for cancer therapy.

Mitochondria are essential intracellular organelles that regulate energy metabolism, cell death, and signaling pathways that are important for cell proliferation and differentiation. Therefore, mitochondria are fundamentally implicated in cancer biology, including initiation, growth, metastasis, relapse, and acquired drug resistance. Based on these implications, mitochondria have been proposed as a major therapeutic target for cancer treatment.

Glucocorticoid receptor positively regulates transcription of FNDC5 in the liver.

Irisin is secreted by skeletal muscle during exercise and influences energy and metabolic homeostasis. This hormone is a cleaved and secreted fragment of fibronectin type III domain-containing 5 (FNDC5). Elucidation of the FNDC5 gene regulation mechanism is necessary to clarify the function of irisin as a potential therapeutic target in human metabolic diseases.