T cells; Disease susceptibility; Lupus; Sex factors in disease
Females are more susceptible to autoimmune disease than males. In several mouse models of disease, castration of males exacerbates disease while androgen treatment ameliorates disease. These data suggest hormones can have an influence on disease...
Females have a higher incidence of autoimmune diseases than males for reasons that are currently unknown. CD4+CD25+ regulatory T cells play an important role in the maintenance of immunological homeostasis and self-tolerance by suppressing...
Skeletal muscle is the most abundant tissue in our body that provides a structural framework and regulates important biological processes. It is also a primary reservoir of protein. Skeletal muscle maintains its structural and functional integrity...
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...
Periodontitis--Age factors; Natural immunity; Age factors in disease
Periodontal disease arises from excessive host inflammatory responses to the tooth-associated microbial biofilm, known as dental plaque. Severity ranges from superficial inflammation of the gingivae (gingivitis) to extensive destruction of...
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...
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...
Periodontitis--Age factors; Natural immunity; Age factors in disease
Age-related alterations in innate immunity are poorly understood. The identification of those mechanisms, which are dysfunctional in old age, will shed light on potential therapeutic strategies for chronic inflammatory diseases prevalent in the...
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...
Through differential display PCR, Munc13-3 was identified as a gene whose relative expression in the visual cortex corresponds to critical period plasticity. Expression of the gene was low at the peak of the critical period and expression was high...
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...
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 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...
Inflammation is now recognized as an important factor in several age-related diseases such as arthritis, atherosclerosis, multiple sclerosis and diabetes. In each case, sub-clinical chronic inflammation occurs over years and leads to progressive...
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...
Myocardial infarction; Glucose--Metabolism; Mitochondrial DNA
Heart failure is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the USA. During the development of heart failure, many cardiac parameters change at the same time including fuel metabolism, oxidative stress and mitochondrial function. Each of these...
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...
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,...
Pancreatic beta cells are extremely vulnerable to destruction by Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS). In type 1 diabetes and islet transplantation ROS are thought to be involved in the loss of beta cells. To test the role of antioxidant in islet...
Recent advances in understanding the molecular mechanisms of mutagenesis indicate that most mutations are dependent on the activity of translesion synthesis DNA polymerases. The impact of reducing the level of these polymerases on mutagenesis and...
