The mechanisms by which estrogens regulate mitochondrial activity are not completely understood. Chronic treatment of ovariectomized rats with estradiol (E 2 ) increased the amount of Nuclear Respiratory Factor-1 (NRF-1) protein in cerebral blood...
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the fifth most common cancer worldwide and the third most fatal, with a rising incidence in the US as a result of the increase in alcoholic liver disease and obesity. Current therapeutic strategies are...
N-acetyltransferase 1 (NAT1) is a phase II metabolic enzyme responsible for the biotransformation of aromatic and heterocyclic amine carcinogens such as 4-aminobiphenyl (ASP). NAT1 catalyzes N-acetylation of arylamines as well as the 0-acetylation...
The lipid aldehydes, 4-hydroxy-2-nonenal (4-HNE) and propene-2-al (acrolein) are reactive α,β-unsaturated aldehydes generated during the peroxidation of lipids and are implicated in the pathogenesis of several oxidative-stress mediated diseases,...
Background: When rat salivary gland cells are cultured in vitro, they dedifferentiate within 24 h. Hypothesis: Growth factors will prevent de-differentiation of primary cultures of parotid gland cells, and they will induce differentiation of ParC5...
This dissertation is a hypothesis-driven research oriented study to determine the role of the pituitary-tumor transforming gene (PTTG) in ovarian cancer, specifically if it is involved in neoplastic transformation leading to tumorigenesis through...
A hyper basis function network (HyperBF) is a generalized radial basis function network (RBF) where the activation function is a radial function of a weighted distance. The local weighting of the distance accounts for the variation in local scaling...
Arsenic--Physiological effect; Cardiovascular system--Diseases; Liver--Effect of arsenic on; Arsenic--Toxicology
Chronic arsenic exposure is associated with increased cardiovascular disease (CVD). Prenatal arsenic exposure at 49 ppm arsenic accelerates atherosclerosis underlying CVD in ApoE-/- mice, but the mechanism is unknown. This dissertation examines the...
T lymphopoiesis has been an intense focus of immunological research since the discovery of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) and T cell mediated transplant rejection. Additionally, researchers have long appreciated the role of T cells, and...
c-Myc dysregulation is one of the most common abnormalities found in human cancer. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are functionally intertwined with the c-Myc network as multiple miRNAs are regulated by c-Myc, while others directly suppress c-Myc expression. In...
Pituitary tumor transforming gene ( PTTG ), also known as securing, is a novel oncogene that is expressed at high levels in most of the tumors analyzed to date. Overexpression of PTTG in mouse fibroblast(NIH 3T3) cells increases cell proliferation,...
Nanoparticles; Drug delivery devices; Gene therapy
The properties and broad applications of nano-magnetic colloids have generated much interest in recent years. Specially, Fe304 nanoparticles have attracted a great deal of attention since their magnetic properties can be used for hyperthermia...
Hepatitis C virus--Research; Interferon--Therapeutic use; Adenosylmethionine
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a major cause of chronic liver disease in the United States and is a huge burden on the US healthcare system. The FDA-approved traditional standard of care for HCV is pegylated interferon-alpha (lFNα) combined...
Drug resistance in microorganisms; Salmonella typhimurium
Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium is an enteric pathogen capable of infecting
a wide range of hosts. The manner in which this pathogen is able to interact with its
host is difficult to define, as is the case with most microbes. Through the...
Pancreatic beta cells are extremely vulnerable to the destruction of Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS). In both type 1 and type 2 diabetes ROS are involved in the loss of U+000DF-cells. We hypothesized that the deficiency in ROS detoxifying system of...
It has been shown that GSK3 β plays a critical role in the inflammation response by differentially regulating MyD88-dependent pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines production in TLR4-stimulated innate immune cells. The work included in this...
Background The anthracycline doxorubicin (DOX) is widely used as an effective antineoplastic drug. Cardiotoxicity leading to congestive heart failure is the primary factor limiting the clinical use of DOX. However, although a variety of approaches...
Gene therapy; Spinal cord--Wounds and injuries; Tissue engineering
The combination of viral mediated gene delivery, tissue engineering, and Schwann cell (SC) transplantation offer a promising strategy to enhance axonal regeneration and functional recovery following spinal cord injury (SCI). The rationale and...
Heart--Hypertrophy; Heart--Physiology; Sugar in the body; Metabolism; Diabetes--Research
Heart failure is recognized as a major cause of death among diabetics. In type I and II diabetes, glucose uptake, glycolysis and pyruvate oxidation are impaired, and fatty acid utilization increases. These alterations in metabolism contribute...
This thesis is divided into two parts below. Part I Adriamycin (ADR) can produce nephrotoxicity in rodents. The underlying mechanism may relate to ADR induced oxidative stress. In this study, we used transgenic mice (NMT3), which over-expressed the...
