Search results for "Apoptosis."
showing 10 items of 1794 documents
Prenatal Brain Damage in Preeclamptic Animal Model Induced by Gestational Nitric Oxide Synthase Inhibition
2010
Cerebral palsy is a major neonatal handicap with unknown aetiology. There is evidence that prenatal brain injury is the leading cause of CP. Severe placental pathology accounts for a high percentage of cases. Several factors predispose to prenatal brain damage but when and how they act is unclear. The aim of this paper was to determine if hypoxia during pregnancy leads to damage in fetal brain and to evaluate the localization of this injury. An animal model of chronic hypoxia produced by chronic administration of a nitric oxide synthase inhibitor (L-NAME) was used to evaluate apoptotic activity in fetal brains and to localize the most sensitive areas. L-NAME reproduces a preeclamptic-like c…
Centenarians overexpress BCL-xL, which confers them a protection against apoptosis, oxidative stress and immunosenescence
2015
Centenarians not only have an extraordinary longevity, but also show a compression of morbidity. They preserve the capacity of maintaining homeostasis, and this is the reason for them to reach such a long life. We studied their mRNA expression profile and identified 1721 mRNAs differentially expressed by centenarians when compared with septuagenarians and young people. A sub-network analysis showed six common genes: interferon, T-cell receptor, tumor necrosis factor, SP1 transcription factor, transforming growth factor and IL-32.These six centenarian-specific genes are related to Bcl-xL, Fas, and Fas ligand all of them involved in the control of apoptosis. RT-PCR analysis confirmed that cen…
Effect of tauroursodeoxycholic acid on bile acid-induced apoptosis in primary human hepatocytes
2000
Background/aims The accumulation of endogenous bile acids contributes to hepatocellular damage during cholestatic liver disease. To evaluate the potential role of apoptotic cell death due to increased concentrations of bile acids, primary human hepatocytes were treated with hydrophobic and hydrophilic bile acids. Because the Fas receptor–ligand system may mediate apoptosis in human liver cells, the effect of toxic bile acids on hepatocellular Fas receptor expression was evaluated. Materials and methods Primary human hepatocytes were incubated with 50 and 100 μM glycochenodeoxycholic acid (GCDCA) and co-incubated with equimolar concentrations of tauroursodeoxycholic acid (TUDCA). To evaluate…
Role of GSH in the modulation of NOS-2 expression in the weaned mammary gland
2005
GSH delivery to the lactating mammary gland is essential for the maintenance of lactation as its decrease leads to apoptosis and involution of the mammary gland. In fact, it has already been demonstrated that some of the changes in gene expression found in the lactating mammary gland after forced weaning are reproduced in rats treated with buthionine sulphoximine to deplete GSH levels. An oligonucleotide microarray experiment would give us a better knowledge of the mRNA expression patterns during lactation and after weaning and the possible functions of GSH in the modulation of these events.
Antiapoptotic effect of calcitonin gene-related peptide on oxidative stress-induced injury in H9c2 cardiomyocytes via the RAMP1/CRLR complex.
2005
Calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) plays an important role in the mediation of protective effects observed in situations such as ischemic preconditioning in rat hearts. In this study, we investigated in H9c2 rat cardiomyoblasts if the protective effect of CGRP could be linked to an inhibitory effect on the apoptotic pathway. We also determined the specificity of observed effects by treatment with adrenomedullin (ADM) in stress conditions generated by 100 microM hydrogen peroxide. Using MTT assays, we demonstrate that a pretreatment with CGRP decreases by half the loss of cell viability induced by H(2)O(2). CGRP inhibits phosphatidylserine externalization, caspase 3 activation and DNA fr…
Histamine and spontaneously released mast cell granules affect the cell growth of human hepatocellular carcinoma cells
2007
The role of mast cells in tumor growth is still controversial. In this study we analyzed the effects of both histamine and pre-formed mediators spontaneously released by mast cells on the growth of two human hepatocellular carcinoma cell lines, HA22T/VGH and HuH-6, with different characteristics of differentiation, biological behavior and genetic defects. We showed that total mast cell releasate, exocytosed granules (granule remnants) and histamine reduced cell viability and proliferation in HuH-6 cells. In contrast, in HA22T/VGH cells granule remnants and histamine induced a weak but significant increase in cell growth. We showed that both cell lines expressed histamine receptors H(1) and …
Non-Invasive Assessment of Liver Injury in Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease: A Review of Literature.
2016
NAFLD (Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease) is an increasingly significant public health issue, regarded as the most relevant liver disease of the twenty-first century. Approximately 20%-30% of NAFLD subjects develop a NASH (Non-Alcoholic Steato-Hepatitis), a condition which can potentially evolve to liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. For these reasons a proper evaluation of liver damage is a key point for diagnosis and prognosis and liver biopsy still remains the "gold standard" procedure both for discrimination between steatosis and steatohepatitis and assessment of the degree of liver fibrosis. Nonetheless, given it is an invasive, painful and costly procedure, a great research …
Getting the Fat out of Met and Fas
2008
Lack of Fas antagonism by Met in human fatty liver disease. Zou C, Ma J, Wang X, Guo L, Zhu Z, Stoops J, Eaker AE, Johnson CJ, Strom S, Michalopoulos GK, DeFrances MC, Zarnegar R. Hepatocytes in fatty livers are hypersensitive to apoptosis and undergo escalated apoptotic activity via death receptor-mediated pathways, particularly that of Fas–FasL, causing hepatic injury that can eventually proceed to cirrhosis and end-stage liver disease. Here we report that the hepatocyte growth factor receptor, Met, plays an important part in preventing Fas-mediated apoptosis of hepatocytes by sequestering Fas. We also show that Fas antagonism by Met is abrogated in human fatty liver disease (FLD). Throug…
Apoptotic effect as biomarker of disease, severity and follow-up in interstitial cystitis
2018
Objective: To determine whether the apoptotic effect test could serve as a biomarker of severity in bladder pain syndrome/interstitial cystitis. Material and methods: A prospective study was conducted between January 2010 and January 2015, which included 57 patients diagnosed with interstitial cystitis and 49 diagnosed with chronic pelvic pain of gynaecological origin. The urine was exposed to cell cultures, and the urine's capacity for inducing apoptosis in the cultures was analysed. A statistical analysis was then conducted to assess whether the apoptotic effect was associated with the symptoms. Results: After performing an analysis of the association between the degree of apoptotic effec…
Renal Lipotoxicity-Associated Inflammation and Insulin Resistance Affects Actin Cytoskeleton Organization in Podocytes
2015
In the last few decades a change in lifestyle has led to an alarming increase in the prevalence of obesity and obesity-associated complications. Obese patients are at increased risk of developing hypertension, heart disease, insulin resistance (IR), dyslipidemia, type 2 diabetes and renal disease. The excess calories are stored as triglycerides in adipose tissue, but also may accumulate ectopically in other organs, including the kidney, which contributes to the damage through a toxic process named lipotoxicity. Recently, the evidence suggests that renal lipid accumulation leads to glomerular damage and, more specifically, produces dysfunction in podocytes, key cells that compose and maintai…