BACKGROUND Pulmonary arterial hypertension is characterized by increased pulmonary vascular resistance secondary to a decrease in the caliber and number of pulmonary vascular channels. We hypothesized that the targeted overexpression of an angiogenic factor within the lung would potentially minimize the development and progression of pulmonary arterial hypertension by preventing the loss of exi...

Chronic hypoxia induces pulmonary arterial remodeling, resulting in pulmonary hypertension and right ventricular hypertrophy. Hypoxia has been implicated as a physiological stimulus for p53 induction and hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α). However, the subcellular interactions between hypoxic exposure and expression of p53 and HIF-1α remain unclear. To examine the role of p53 and HIF-1α expre...

BACKGROUND Involvement of inflammation in pulmonary hypertension (PH) has previously been demonstrated and recently, immune-modulating dendritic cells (DCs) infiltrating arterial lesions in patients suffering from idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension (IPAH) and in experimental monocrotaline-induced PH have been reported. Occurrence of perivascular inflammatory cells could be linked to loc...

The formation of neointimal lesions is one of the characteristic pathological alterations of the pulmonary vasculature in response to sustained pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). To date, the effect of dichloroacetate (DCA) on these intimal lesions had remained to be investigated. In the present study, the beneficial impact of DCA on the formation of neointimal lesions was examined in rats ...

Pulmonary hypertension is a severe and progressive disease, a key feature of which is pulmonary vascular remodeling. Several growth factors, including EGF, PDGF, and TGF-β1, are involved in pulmonary vascular remodeling during pulmonary hypertension. However, increased knowledge of the downstream signaling cascades is needed if effective clinical interventions are to be developed. In this conte...

• It is well known that hypoxia elicits an increase of pulmonary vascular resistance in man and in experimental animals.' Accumulated physiologic data suggest that hypoxia elicits vasoconstriction in either preor postcapillary vessels.' Anatomic studies have been inconclusive with reference to exact vasoconstrictor sites. It has been shown that chronic hypoxia leads to increased pulmonary arter...

Chronic hypoxia causes pulmonary vasoconstriction and pulmonary hypertension, which lead to pulmonary vascular remodeling and right ventricular hypertrophy. To determine the effects of hypoxia-induced pulmonary vascular remodeling on pulmonary vascular impedance, which is the right ventricular afterload, we exposed C57BL6 mice to 0 (control), 10 and 15 days of hypobaric hypoxia (n=6, each) and ...

In the present study, the hypothesis that dendritic cells (DCs), key players in immunity and tolerance, might be involved in the immunopathology of idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension (IPAH) was tested. The phenotype and localisation of DCs were characterised by immunohistochemistry and double-labelling immunofluorescence in lung samples from controls, human IPAH patients and an experime...

BACKGROUND The incidence of pulmonary arterial hypertension secondary to the use of indirect serotinergic agonists such as aminorex and dexfenfluramine led to the "serotonin hypothesis" of pulmonary arterial hypertension; however, the role of serotonin in dexfenfluramine-induced pulmonary arterial hypertension remains controversial. Here, we used novel transgenic mice lacking peripheral seroton...

macrophages accumulate in poorly vascularised and hypoxic sites including solid tumours, wounds and sites of infection and inflammation where they can be exposed to low levels of oxygen for long periods. up to date, different studies have shown that a number of transcription factors are activated by hypoxia which in turn activate a broad array of mitogenic, pro-invasive, pro-angiogenic, and pro...