Chronic Aristolochic Acid Nephropathy (AAN) is a progressive chronic kidney disease related to herb medicine. However, treatment for chronic AAN remains ineffective. We report here that Smad7 is protective and has therapeutic potential for chronic AAN. In a mouse model of chronic AAN, progressive renal injury was associated with a loss of renal Smad7 and disruption of Smad7 largely aggravated t...

Chronic progressive lymphedema is a disorder of many draft horse breeds that presents with progressive swelling of the distal portions of the legs. This is associated with scaling, marked dermal fibrosis, and the development of skin folds and nodules. There seems to be a genetic predisposition to altered elastin metabolism and impaired function of the lymphatic system in the distal extremities....

PD (Parkinson's disease) is characterized by the selective and progressive loss of DA neurons (dopaminergic neurons) in the substantia nigra. Inflammation and activation of microglia, the resident innate immune cell in the brain, have been strongly linked to neurodegenerative diseases, such as PD. Microglia can respond to immunological stimuli and neuronal death to produce a host of toxic facto...

Ashwini K. Rao, EdD, OTR, FAOTA, is Associate Editor, American Journal of Occupational Therapy, and Associate Professor, Department of Rehabilitation and Regenerative Medicine and G. H. Sergievsky Center, Columbia University, 710 West 168th Street, 8th Floor, New York, NY 10032; [email protected] To support the continued role of occupational therapy in the changing landscape of health care poli...

THE term " chronic progressive ophthalmoplegia " signifies a syndrome characterized by a slowly progressive weakness of the external ocular muscles. In the past the term has been applied loosely, for cases have been called chronic progressive ophthalmoplegia which differ from each other in important respects. Thus, in some instances the paralysis has been confined to the levators ofthe upper li...

Chemokines are 8 ± 12 kd chemoattractant cytokines characterized by a four cysteine motif (Luster, 1998; Ransohoff et al, 1996; Schall, 1994; Taub, 1996). The presence or absence of an intervening amino acid(s) (X) between the N terminal cysteines de®nes the CXC/CX3C and CC families, respectively. A third family, C chemokines, lacks an N terminal cysteine but is otherwise homologous. It was ori...

Chronic progressive external ophthalmoplegia is one of mitochondrial disorders, characterized by ptosis, limitation of eye movement, variably severe bulbar muscle weakness and proximal limb weakness. Chronic progressive external ophthalmoplegia complicated with acquired disease is extremely rare. We report a 44 years old male patient with more than 20 years of chronic progressive bilateral ptos...

Introduction Mitochondrial diseases are a diverse group with multisystem involvement caused by structural, biochemical or genetic derangement of mitochondria. Cerebral neurones and myocytes which require a high yield of energy are particularly vulnerable to mitochondrial dysfunction and neuromuscular manifestations are common in mitochodrial disorders. We report two cases of mitochondrial myopa...

The occurrence of chronic kidney disease and subsequent rate of loss of renal function are highly variable among individuals with the same underlying cause of renal injury or degree of functional impairment. Individual variability of risk is typical of complex diseases and reflects the multifactorial nature of the biologic mechanisms that are involved in the underlying disease process. The util...

This report describes heart disease in a 32-year-old man with the syndrome of chronic progressive external ophthalmoplegia (CPEO). The surface electrocardiogram showed first degree AV block and left bundle-branch block and there was HV prolongation on the His bundle electrogram. Endomyocardial biopsy showed the changes of hypertrophy on light microscopy, and on electron microscopy there were in...