AIM Occlusion of the middle ferebral artery in rats may cause secondary injury that is not associated with middle ferebral artery feeding zone. This entity has been investigated very rarely. MATERIAL AND METHODS HE staining method observed the changes of cerebellar cortex after MCAO operation. Electron Microscopy and TUNEL methods observed the apoptosis of neural cells of cere...

While the androgens, including dihydrotestosterone (DHT), have been implicated in the development of androgenetic alopecia (AGA), the exact mechanism by which they exert their effects is unknown. As apoptosis is an integral component of the normal cycling of human hair, we investigated individuals clinically affected by AGA to assess whether objective differences in the expression of apoptosis ...

In an open-chest porcine model, we examined whether myocardial pharmacological conditioning at the time of reperfusion with low-dose insulin or insulin-like growth factor 2 (IGF2), not affecting serum glucose levels, could reduce infarct size and improve functional recovery. Two groups of anaesthetized pigs with either 60 or 40 min. of left anterior descending artery occlusion (total n = 42) we...

Muscadine grape skin extract (MSKE) is derived from muscadine grape (Vitis rotundifolia), a common red grape used to produce red wine. Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress activates the unfolded protein response (UPR) that serves as a survival mechanism to relieve ER stress and restore ER homeostasis. However, when persistent, ER stress can alter the cytoprotective functions of the UPR to promote ...

background: pectin is composed of complex polysaccharides that can inhibit cancer metastasis and proliferation with no evidence of toxicity. in the present study, the apoptotic and necrotic effects of pectic acid (pa) on the rat pituitary gh3/b6 tumor cells has been investigated. methods: gh3/b6 cells were cultured in the ham’s f12 medium enriched with 15% horse serum and 2.5% fetal bovine seru...

PURPOSE Radiation-induced oral mucositis limits the delivery of high-dose radiation to head and neck cancer. This study investigated the effectiveness of epicatechin (EC), a component of green tea extracts, on radiation-induced oral mucositis in vitro and in vivo. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN The effect of EC on radiation-induced cytotoxicity was analyzed in the human keratinocyte line HaCaT. Radiatio...

BACKGROUND Liraglutide is glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist for treating patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Our previous studies have demonstrated that liraglutide protects cardiac function through improving endothelial function in patients with acute myocardial infarction undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention. The present study will investigate whether liraglutide can perfo...

Profound T cell inhibitory activity of hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) in vitro has recently been described in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). In the present study, we investigated the immune inhibitory activity of HSCs in vivo in an orthotopic rat HCC model with lung metastasis. Rats (n=24) were randomly sacrificed on days 7, 14, 21 and 28 (n=4 each). Lung tissues were stained with hematoxylin a...

OBJECTIVE To investigate whether microvascular damage is involved in the pathogenesis of heroin induced spongiform leukoencephalopathy (HSLE). METHODS The brain tissues were collected from 4 HSLE patients and 5 controls and then fixed in 4% paraformaldehyde. The frontal lobe, corpus callosum and cerebellum were separated. The expressions of myelin base protein (MBP) and CD34 were detected by ...

Situ Nick End-Labeling (TUNEL) in Hearts With Dilated Cardiomyopathy To the Editor: Recently, Kanoh et al1 seriously questioned the reliability of the DNA in situ nick end-labeling (TUNEL) assay as a method of detecting cardiomyocyte apoptosis (CA) in dilated cardiomyopathy. Our experience with both failing2 and infarcted3 human hearts is remarkably different. We agree that TUNEL positivity is ...