Background: Varicocele occurs in approximately 15 to 20% of the general male population and it is the most common cause of poor semen production and decreased semen quality. It has been demonstrated that patients with varicocele have a significantly higher DNA damage and spermatozoa with nuclear anomalies than healthy men. Previously it was documented that antioxidant therapy or varicocelectomy...

Hirschsprung’s disease is a congenital malformation characterized by the absence of enteric ganglia in distal intestine and gut obstruction. Our previous study indicates brain pathology during progression. A subpopulation patients also associated with anomalies central nervous system. In investigation, we studied rat model disease, known as spotting lethal (sl/sl) ETB-/- rats, which carries spo...

Background Despite the wide application of lasers and radiofrequency (RF) surgery in dermatology, it is difficult to find studies showing the extent of damage dependent on cell death. Objective We evaluated histopathologic changes following in vivo thermal damage generated by CO2 laser, 1,444 nm long-pulsed neodymium:yttrium-aluminum-garnet (LP Nd:YAG) laser and RF emitting electrosurgical un...

Background SIRT1 plays a protective role against diabetic retinopathy as it regulates inflammation, apoptosis and autophagy of cells. Objectives This study was designed to investigate the effects arbutin identify potential mechanism action. Adult human retinal pigment epithelial (ARPE-19) cells were exposed high glucose (HG) or treated with different concentrations arbutin. Material methods The...

BACKGROUND In this study we present the physiological changes observed in ejaculated spermatozoa of normospermic men after exposure to hydrogen peroxide (H(2)O(2)) or gamma irradiation. METHODS Motility changes as well as membrane and DNA-damage were determined in spermatozoa after incubation with 25 micromol/l of H(2)O(2) during increasing intervals of time (0--60 min and after 24 h) or afte...

PURPOSE To investigate whether apoptosis plays a notable role in degeneration of corneal endothelial cells in patients with Fuchs' dystrophy. METHODS Forty-seven corneal buttons from 41 patients with Fuchs' dystrophy were studied. Nucleus labeling, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and TdT-dUTP terminal nick-end labeling (TUNEL) were used to detect apoptosis. TEM and TUNEL were performe...

Whole-mount immunofluorescence to detect activated Caspase 3 (Casp3 assay) is useful to identify cells undergoing either intrinsic or extrinsic apoptosis in zebrafish embryos. The whole-mount analysis provides spatial information in regard to tissue specificity of apoptosing cells, although sectioning and/or colabeling is ultimately required to pinpoint the exact cell types undergoing apoptosis...

Purpose: To investigate the effect of micro-ribonucleic acid (miR)-208a on heart failure (HF) in rats through β-catenin pathway.Methods: A total 24 specific pathogen-free female Sprague-Dawley were enrolled and randomly divided into 3 equal groups, namely, control (normal group), model, study group (miR-208a), with 8 each. Echocardiography was utilized to evaluate cardiac function, terminal deo...

20(S)-protopanaxadiol (PPD) is an active natural product which transformed from protopanaxadiol-type ginsenosides. The present study was conducted to evaluate the effects of PPD on myocardial ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury in a rat model. (20mg/kg) or positive-control drug Diltiazem (10mg/kg) administered daily for 7 days before left anterior descending I/R operation. After 2-hour reperfusio...

Methamphetamine (Meth) is recognized as one of the most important new distributedabused drug that causes severe damage to the different parts of the brain, especiallyhippocampus. Previous studies have demonstrated that Meth can induce apoptosis and celldeath in the brain. In this study, we evaluated the long-term effects of Meth abuse in theCA1 region of postmortem hippo...