The anti-inflammatory effect of a small molecular weight antagonist of P- and E-selectin-dependent cell adhesion was examined. The glycolipid sulphatide was shown to block the adherence of thrombin-activated rat platelets to HL-60 cells. This interaction is known to be dependent on P-selectin. The rat dermal reverse passive Arthus reaction was used to assess the effect of sulphatide on a neutro...

Histological and ultrastructural studies of the hearts of dogs sacrificed 18 to 26 days after intraperitoneal inoculation with 4 x 10(5) blood forms of the 12 SF strain of Trypanosoma cruzi/kg of body weight disclosed myocarditis characterized by parasitic invasion of some myocytes, damage and necrosis of nonparasitized myocytes, and interstitial infiltration by mononuclear cells. Nonparasitize...

In response to pathogen infection and tissue damage, inflammasome sensors such as NLRP3 and AIM2 are activated, which triggers PYRIN domain (PYD)-mediated ASC nucleation, followed by self-perpetuating ASC polymerization, which ultimately culminates in caspase-1 activation, interleukin (IL)-1β and IL-18 processing and release and pyroptosis (Ratsimandresy et al., 2013; Cai et al., 2014). Inflamm...

The development and progression of bladder pain syndrome/interstitial cystitis (BPS/IC) is closely related to bladder inflammation. Intercellular adhesion molecule 1 (ICAM-1) is associated with bladder inflammation in BPS/IC. We investigated the effect of specific inhibition of ICAM-1 using an anti-ICAM-1 antibody (AIA) on bladder inflammation in a rat model of severe non-bacterial cystitis (NB...

Fibroblast growth factor-2 (FGF-2) is cardioprotective when added exogenously, stimulates cardiac myocyte proliferation, and is a mediator of tissue repair after injury. Furthermore, transgenic (TG) mice overexpressing FGF-2 in cardiac muscle demonstrate increased resistance to injury in an isolated heart model of ischemia-reperfusion. We investigated how increasing the endogenous FGF-2 levels ...

Recently, we demonstrated that peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-alpha (PPARalpha) ligand ameliorates cisplatin-induced acute renal failure (ARF) by preventing inhibition of substrate oxidation, and also by preventing apoptosis and necrosis of the proximal tubule (Li S, Bhatt R, Megyesi J, Gokden N, Shah SV, and Portilla D. Am J Physiol Renal Physiol 287: F990-F998, 2004). In the follo...

In order to learn about the immunopathogenic mechanisms of experimental autoimmune uveoretinitis (EAU), the capacity of lymphocytes to transfer the disease was studied. EAU was transferred to naive syngeneic rats by intraperitoneal injection of spleen or lymph node (LN) cells from S-antigen immunized rats, following their incubation in culture with either S-antigen or concanavalin A (Con A). In...

A previous study found that eosinophil infiltration and Th2 cell recruitment are important causes of chronic lung inflammation in asthma. The plant flavonoid acacetin is known to have an anti-inflammatory effect in vitro. This study aims to investigate the anti-inflammatory effect of orally administered acacetin in ovalbumin- (OVA-) sensitized asthmatic mice and its underlying molecular mechani...

Stellate ganglion blockade (SGB) with a local anesthetic increases muscle sympathetic nerve activity in the tibial nerve in humans. However, whether this sympathetic excitation in the tibial nerve is due to a sympathetic blockade in the neck itself, or due to infiltration of a local anesthetic to adjacent nerves including the vagus nerve remains unknown. To rule out one mechanism, we examined t...

The protective effect of ginsenoside Re, isolated from ginseng berry, against acute gastric mucosal lesions was examined in rats with a single intraperitoneal injection of compound 48/80 (C48/80). Ginsenoside Re (20 mg/kg or 100 mg/kg) was orally administered 0.5 h prior to C48/80 treatment. Ginsenoside Re dose-dependently prevented gastric mucosal lesion development 3 h after C48/80 treatment....