Gestatinal

The aim of the study was to correlate the spectral index of the right and left uterine arteries with equine placental development in mares with advanced pregnancies. We examined 32 multiparous Mangalarga Marchador mares with gestation of 150-240 days. During pregnancy, the pulsatility index (PI) and resistance index (RI) of the uterine arteries were obtained using spectral Doppler ultrasonography, and the combined uteroplacental thickness was obtained monthly using B-mode ultrasonography. The combined uteroplacental thickness correlated with gestational time of up to 13 years of age, and the significant difference was observed from the sixth month onwards...

The aim of this study was to determine the expression of VEGF and its receptors in placentas from normal pregnancies between 22 days p.c. and 48 days p.c. of very early pregnancy. Placental tissues carried out from 19 pregnant women were examined. Immunohistochemical technique, electron microscopy were employed to evaluate the factors expression. In the new developing mesenchymal villi and immature intermediate villi VEGF and its receptors VEGFR-1 and VEGFR-2 immunoreactivity was detected in all the placental components, while in the stem villi and in the chorionic plate with large vessels only in some components...

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the role of dimethylarginine dimethylaminohydrolase-2 (DDAH-2)/asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA) in pathophiology of preeclampsia by detecting expression of DDAH-2 in placenta and serum plasma ADMA. METHODS: From Jan. 2004 to Jan. 2005, 30 preeclampsia patients (PE group) were chosen in the Third Affiliated Hospital, Guangzhou Medical College matched with 10 normal third trimester women as control (control group). The placental DDAH-2 mRNA expression was detected by fluorescence quantitative polymerase chain reaction (FQ-PCR) and the plasma concentration of ADMA was determined by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)...

Several indications of metabolic interactions between vitamin A and iodine prompted this experiment to determine if oral vitamin A supplementation would alleviate the effects of iodine toxicity using aspects of reproductive performance of rats as criteria. Sprague-Dawley female rats were acclimated to a purified diet and assigned, at breeding time, to 2 X 3 factorial experiments (n = 60) to test the effects of 600 and 12,000 IU vitamin A (experiment 1) and 12,000 and 480,000 IU vitamin A (experiment 2) as retinyl palmitate per kilogram diet, on the reproductive performance of rats fed 0...

The effect of L-arginine on fetal insulin release has been investigated in the chronically catheterized sheep fetus and the findings have been compared with the beta cell response to glucose. An infusion of arginine for 5 min (200 mg as a solution of 11.5 mmol/l) stimulated a rapid release of insulin in all the fetuses from 119 to 142 days of gestational age. The maximum insulin concentration occurred at the end of infusion; the mean insulin increase between 0 and 5 min was 18.0 +/- 2.0 mocrounits/ml (n = 20)...