Heart--Hypertrophy; Hydrogen sulfide--Therapeutic use
Background: Although matrix metalloproteinase (MMPs) and tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase (TIMPs) play a vital role in tumor angiogenesis and TIMP-3 causes apoptosis, their role in cardiac angiogenesis is unknown. Interestingly, a disruption...
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,...
Previous studies on the mechanistic induction of anti-tumor responses by IL-12 cytokine therapy have focused on the adaptive immune response, specifically the activation NK cells and T cells as the primary targets of IL-12 treatment. In contrast,...
Acrolein--Toxicology; Stem cells--Effect of pollution on
Acrolein is a common pollutant present in ambient air, automobile exhaust, and tobacco smoke. Previous studies show that exposure to acrolein increases cardiovascular disease risk. To determine whether acrolein affect cardiovascular regeneration,...
Blood flow--Measurement; Spinal cord--Wounds and injuries
Traumatic injury destroys blood vessels at the injury epicenter and is followed by local
angiogenesis and regional inflammation. Healing from injury depends on vascular health because
blood supply is directly responsible for the health and function...
It has been estimated that 30% of all cancer deaths in the U.S. are associated with obesity. It is well-established that obesity promotes low-grade chronic inflammation, however the mechanisms by which obesity-induced chronic inflammation may...
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...
Copper--Physiological effect; Copper in the body; Heart--Hypertrophy
Previous studies have shown that copper (Cu) supplementation at physiologically relevant levels reverses cardiac myocyte hypertrophy induced by phenylephrine (PE), and that this effect was VEGF-dependent. Yet, the amount of VEGF in the media was...
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...
Parkinson's disease--Treatment; Stem cells--Therapeutic use
Parkinson's disease (PD) is a hypokinetic movement disorder resulting from the
progressive neurodegeneration of the dopaminergic nigrostriatal system in the brain and
the resulting imbalance between dopamine and acetylcholine in the basal ganglia...
Wound healing--Research; Wound healing--Animal models; Rabbits as laboratory animals
Ventral ear skin of the rabbit is a commonly used model for wound/ulcer studies; however the gradient effects of vascular ligation on epidermal stability has not been reported. In this study ischemic effects were studied after ligation of the...
The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of short-term high-intensity resistance training on time to exhaustion at maximal aerobic output. It was hypothesized that 2 weeks of training will induce improvements in performance at maximal...
Cancer accounts for nearly one-quarter of deaths in the United States, exceeded only by heart diseases. Despite the development of various strategies to treat cancer, it remains one of the most deadly diseases worldwide due to the limited effects...
Tobacco smoke is a strong and independent risk factor for several chronic systemic diseases and also increases susceptibility to a multitude of bacterial infections, including periodontal infections. Periodontitis is a chronic inflammatory disease...
Nerves--Regeneration; Spinal cord--Wounds and injuries--Treatment
These studies set out to identify strategies to rescue and repair the adult nervous system. First, we investigated the role of ciliary neurotrophic factor (CNTF) in 5HT1A receptor-induced neurogenesis in the rodent brain. Systemic treatment with an...
Monoclonal antibodies directed toward tumor associated antigens are FDA approved anticancer reagents used commonly in the clinic. Administered antibodies initiate tumor cell death through several mechanisms. Improving immune mediated mechanisms,...
Chronic periodontitis is strongly associated with composition of the oral biofilm
occupying the gingival crevicular aspect of the tooth and its associated root. Some gram-negative,
"red complex" bacteria instigate periodontal bone loss in...
Background. Progression of alcoholic liver disease (ALD) is associated with an increase in fibrin extracellular matrix (ECM) and inflammation. Previous studies have shown that this accumulation of fibrin in ALD is mediated by impaired fibrinolysis....
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...
Chapter I . Seven novel head-to-tail cyclic pentapeptides and pseudopentapeptides containing the arginine-glycine-aspartic acid (RGD) tripeptide motif were synthesized. All of the peptides were constructed using solid phase peptide synthesis....
