The 17beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (17beta-HSD) enzymes are involved in the interconversion of biologically active and inactive sex steroids and are considered to play a critical role in the in situ metabolism of estrogen, especially in estrogen-dependent breast cancer. The gene encoding 17beta-HSD type 2 is located at 16q24.1-2, and earlier studies have shown that allelic loss in this reg...

BACKGROUND Changes in hygiene and dietary habits, including increased consumption of foods high in fat, simple sugars, and salt that are known to impact the composition and function of the intestinal microbiota, may explain the increase in prevalence of chronic inflammatory diseases. High salt consumption has been shown to worsen autoimmune encephalomyelitis and colitis in mouse models through ...

BACKGROUND Collider bias, or stratifying data by a covariate consequence rather than cause (confounder) of treatment and outcome, plagues randomised and observational trauma research. Of the seven trials of prehospital hypertonic saline in dextran (HSD) that have been evaluated in systematic reviews, none found an overall between-group difference in survival, but four reported significant subgr...

A holey Schröder design of type h1 1 h n2 2 . . . h nk k (HSD(h n1 1 h n2 2 . . . h nk k )) is equivalent to a frame idempotent Schröder quasigroup (FISQ(h1 1 h n2 2 . . . hk k )) of order n with ni missing subquasigroups (holes) of order hi, 1 ≤ i ≤ k, which are disjoint and spanning, that is, ∑1≤i≤k nihi = n. In this paper, we consider the existence of HSD(4u) for 0 ≤ u ≤ 36 and show that the...

3 -hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (3 -HSD) is known to be involved in steroid production and/or metabolism and to be expressed in many tissues including adrenal cortex. Expression of this enzyme has also been elucidated in human cardiovascular system but its details remain largely unknown. Therefore, in this study, we examined the status of 3 -HSD in postmortem human aorta utilizing RT-PCR and im...

Ni, Xi-Ping, Aditi Bhargava, David Pearce, and Michael H. Humphreys. Modulation by dietary sodium intake of melanocortin 3 receptor mRNA and protein abundance in the rat kidney. Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol 290: R560–R567, 2006. First published September 29, 2005; doi:10.1152/ajpregu.00279.2005.— -Melanocyte stimulating hormone ( -MSH) is a circulating natriuretic peptide hormone deri...

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES We compared changes in heart-femoral pulse wave velocity (hfPWV) in response to low sodium and high sodium diet between individuals with sodium sensitivity (SS) and resistance (SR) to evaluate the influence of sodium intake on arterial stiffness. SUBJECTS/METHODS Thirty-one hypertensive and 70 normotensive individuals were given 7 days of low sodium dietary approach to s...

The purpose of our investigations was to measure, in a co-culture condition, the immunoresponse to allogeneic or xenogenic cells, selected as potential sources for cell therapy of arthritis. We challenged human spleen-derived cells (hSpl) by three different mechanisms: 1) exposure to donor allogeneic or xenogeneic cellular antigens; 2) exposure to donor cells transduced with adenoviral antigens...

In response to salt loading, Na+ and Cl- accumulate in the skin in excess of water, stimulating skin lymphangiogenesis via activation of the mononuclear phagocyte system cell-derived vascular endothelial growth factor-C-vascular endothelial growth factor type 3 receptor signaling pathway. Inhibition of this pathway results in salt-sensitive hypertension. Sunitinib is an antiangiogenic, anticanc...

Interleukin (IL)-1β, the sole proinflammatory cytokine released from pancreas-infiltrating macrophages, inhibits glucose-stimulated insulin secretion (GSIS), causing hyperglycemia in Cohen diabetes-sensitive (CDs) rats fed a diabetogenic-diet (CDs-HSD). Because IL-1β blockade is a potential therapeutic target in diabetes, we examined whether treating CDs rats with IL-1β antibody (IL-1βAb; 0.5 m...