Diagnostic Accuracy of Critical Care Transesophageal Echocardiography vs Cardiology-Led Echocardiography in ICU Patients.

Background: Critical care transesophageal echocardiography (ccTEE) performed by intensivists is increasingly used to investigate cardiorespiratory failure in the ICU. Validation of the accuracy of TEE in the hands of intensivists remains largely unknown. The goal of this study was to characterize the diagnostic accuracy of ccTEE.

Impact of Critical Care Transesophageal Echocardiography in Medical-Surgical ICU Patients: Characteristics and Results From 274 Consecutive Examinations.

Objective: Critical care echocardiography has become an integral tool in the assessment and management of critically ill patients. Critical care transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) offers diagnostic reliability, superior image quality, and an expanded diagnostic scope to transthoracic echocardiography. Despite its favorable attributes, TEE use in North American intensive care units (ICUs) remains relatively undescribed.

Bilateral blindness secondary to optic nerve ischemia from severe amlodipine overdose: a case report.

Background: Calcium channel blockers are commonly prescribed medications; calcium channel blocker overdose is becoming increasingly prevalent. The typical presentation of a calcium channel blocker overdose is hypotension and decreased level of consciousness. We describe a case of a calcium channel blocker overdose that led to bilateral cortical blindness, a presentation that has not previously been reported.

ATP-binding cassette A1-mediated lipidation of apolipoprotein A-I occurs at the plasma membrane and not in the endocytic compartments.

ATP-binding cassette transporter (ABC) A1 is required for the lipidation of apolipoprotein A-I to generate high density lipoprotein (HDL). This process is proposed to occur through a retro-endocytosis pathway in which apoA-I internalizes with ABCA1 and generates HDL from the endosomal compartments before resecretion. The aim of this study was to determine the route of apoA-I endocytosis and whether endocytosis contributes to HDL biogenesis.

Drugs and their molecular targets: an updated overview.

About 330 targets bind approved drugs, 270 encoded by the human genome and 60 belonging to pathogenic organisms. A large number of druggable targets have been recently proposed from preclinical and first clinical data, but a huge reservoir of putative drug targets, possibly several thousands, remains to be explored. This overview considers the different types of ligands and their selectivity in the main superfamilies of drug targets, enzymes, membrane transporters and ion channels, and the various classes of membrane and nuclear receptors with their signalling pathway.

The "Epigenetic Code Replication Machinery", ECREM: a promising drugable target of the epigenetic cell memory.

Discrete chemical modifications of the chromatin (DNA and primarily histones) can regulate gene expression or repression and can be transmitted to the descent (cells or organisms) thanks to an epigenetic memory. These modifications involve histone post-translational modifications, DNA methylation at CpG islands and small nuclear RNAs processes. They play fundamental roles in cell proliferation and differentiation.

ATP-binding cassette transporter A1 expression disrupts raft membrane microdomains through its ATPase-related functions.

ATP-binding cassette transporter A1 (ABCA1) is known to mediate cholesterol efflux to lipid-poor apolipoprotein A-I. In addition, ABCA1 has been shown to influence functions of the plasma membrane, such as endocytosis and phagocytosis. Here, we report that ABCA1 expression results in a significant redistribution of cholesterol and sphingomyelin from rafts to non-rafts.

The Rac/Cdc42 guanine nucleotide exchange factor beta1Pix enhances mastoparan-activated Gi-dependent pathway in mast cells.

Carbachol stimulates granule exocytosis, phospholipase C (PLC), and phospholipase D (PLD) in RBL-2H3hm1 mast cells by a mechanism that involves Galphaq. However, mastoparan stimulates the same responses through Gi protein. Both Gi and Galphaq pathways are suppressed by Clostridium difficile toxin B, suggesting that Rac and Cdc42 small GTPases are also involved.

G protein-dependent activation of mast cell by peptides and basic secretagogues.

Signaling pathways leading to exocytosis and arachidonate release from serosal mast cells by basic secretagogues, including cationic peptides, arise from the involvement of betagamma subunits from G(i2) and G(i3) GTP-binding proteins. The original concept that basic secretagogues directly interact with G proteins implicated the entry of secretagogues into mast cells. This has been demonstrated only for the neuropeptide substance P.

Agmatine: a mastoparan-like activity related to direct activation of heterotrimeric G proteins.

We examined agmatine and imidazoline derivatives as putative ligands of trimeric G protein in rat peritoneal mast cells. Agmatine induced a concentration-dependent and pertussis toxin-sensitive secretion of histamine (exocytosis) and arachidonate. Clonidine and idazoxan had no effect.