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...
This project investigated the effect of hypothermia on the monocyte response with the goal of understanding, which intracellular processes are affected by hypothermia leading to differences in cytokine secretion. A better understanding of the...
Heart failure is the most frequent cause of mortality in western countries. Currently, there is no cure treatment for heart failure and the long term survival rate following heart failure is poor, with one third of patients dying within a year of...
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...
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...
Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are persistent environmental pollutants which
are detectable in the serum of all American adults. Amongst PCB congeners,
PCB 153 has the highest serum level. PCBs have been dose-dependently
associated with suspected...
Vascular injury and chronic arterial diseases such as atherosclerosis and restenosis result in exposure of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) to increased concentrations of growth factors triggering a change from a contractile to a synthetic...
Cancer patients show circadian disruption that increases as disease progresses. Disrupted endocrine and activity rhythms predict early metastatic cancer mortality. Effects of psychological versus biological factors on rhythms are unknown, as are...
Recent studies indicate post-translational deacetylation by members of the superfamily of histone deacetylase complexes (HDACs) is necessary for oligodendrocyte precursor cell (OPC) differentiation into mature oligodendrocytes (OLs). However, it...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Anxiety in children; Anxiety--Physiological aspects
Anxiety disorders are prevalent in both adult and child populations, and are associated with significant economic and psychosocial costs. There are clearly familial patterns of transmission within the anxiety disorders, and the inherited risk is...
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) regulate gene expression at the post-transcriptional level by repressing translation or stimulating mRNA degradation. In this study, I tested the hypothesis that miRNAs are differentially expressed in antiestrogen-sensitive MCF-7...
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...
Spinal cord injury (SCI) can be divided into two distinct stages, an initial mechanical impact and a later "secondary injury" resulting from a cascade of cytokines triggering a spreading demyelination and apoptosis of neurons and glia...
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...
Sleep apnea syndromes; Overweight persons--Health and hygiene; Obesity
Overweight and obesity is a major contributing factor in an estimated 70% of all obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) cases. Approximately five percent of the adult population has OSA, and the numbers continue to soar with the rising prevalence of...
Reperfusion of the ischemic lung causes pulmonary arteriolar vasoconstriction and reduces alveolar perfusion. Lung ischemia-reperfusion (IR) injury leads to platelet and leukocyte activation which could contribute to decreased alveolar perfusion...
