circulation research

CONTEXT: The birth process and the moments thereafter are a crucial time for newborns as they adapt to extra uterine life. The adaptive process begins immediately and can take a number of days to complete. The process involves initiating and maintaining respirations, thermoregulation, and the change from foetal circulation to newborn circulation. The majority of newborns successfully adapt to extra uterine life, some experience difficulty. Early warning tools may assist clinicians identify early signs of failure to adapt and/or deterioration but these are dependent on 'Normal' vital sign reference ranges for triggering an escalation of care...

Background -Radiation exposure during fluoroscopically-guided interventions such as endovascular aortic repair (EVAR) is a growing concern for operators. This study aimed to measure DNA damage/repair markers in operators perfoming EVAR. Methods -Expression of the DNA damage/repair marker, gamma-H2AX (γ-H2AX) and DNA damage response (DDR) marker, phosphorylated ataxia telangiectasia mutated (pATM), were quantified in circulating lymphocytes in operators during the peri-operative period of endovascular (infra-renal [IEVAR], branched [BEVAR] and fenestrated [FEVAR]) and open aortic repair using flow cytometry...

BACKGROUND: The altered expression of circulating miRNAs has been discovered in many autoimmune diseases (ADs). With rare existing research, it is still unclear in Hashimoto's thyroiditis (HT). We detected plasma miRNA expression of HT patients in this three-stage designed study. METHODS: Differently expressed miRNAs (4 HT pools vs. 1 normal control pool) were identified using quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) based Exiqon panel (miRCURY-Ready-to-Use- PCR-Human- panel-I+II-V1...

BACKGROUND: There is a wide chasm in access to essential and emergency surgery between high and low/middle income countries (LMICs). Surgeons worldwide are integral to solutions needed to address this imbalance. Involving surgical trainees, who represent the future of surgery, is vital to this endeavour. The Association of Surgeons in Training (ASiT) is an independent charity that support surgical trainees of all ten surgical specialties in the UK and Ireland. ASiT convened a consensus meeting at the ASiT conference in Liverpool 2016 to discuss trainee engagement with global surgery, including potential barriers and solutions...

Mammalian proteases segregate into several distinct protein families that employ different functional domains to hydrolyze peptides bonds with different specificities and affinities. These enzymes play central roles in critical cellular and systemic processes, including regulation of cell growth, differentiation, homeostasis, and apoptosis; and cancer initiation, progression, and metastasis. Human proteases segregate into five distinct catalytic classes; the metalloprotease, serine protease, and cysteine protease families have the most members, while the aspartic and threonine peptidase families have relatively few examples...

This paper presents the design and experimental performance of a microelectrode-based device to selectively lyse cells in a flow in a microfluidic channel. Localized cell lysis is achieved by utilizing "irreversible electroporation", in which cells are exposed to high magnitude electric pulses. Localized cell lysis in a flow has research applications and may allow for removal of harmful cells such as circulating tumor cells from blood. Due to the dependence of this technique on the magnitude of the applied electric field, lethal electric field regions can be localized in the channel by calibration of the applied voltage...

The detection of glioblastoma (GBM) in biofluids offers potential advantages over existing paradigms for the diagnosis and therapeutic monitoring of glial tumors. Biofluid-based detection of GBM focuses on detecting tumor-specific biomarkers in the blood and CSF. Current clinical research concentrates on studying 3 distinct tumor-related elements: extracellular macromolecules, extracellular vesicles, and circulating tumor cells. Investigations into these 3 biological classifications span the range of locales for tumor-specific biomarker discovery, and combined, have the potential to significantly impact GBM diagnosis, monitoring for treatment response, and surveillance for recurrence...

Blood cells circulate in a dynamic fluidic environment, and during hematologic processes such as hemostasis, thrombosis, and inflammation, blood cells interact biophysically with a myriad of vascular matrices-blood clots and the subendothelial matrix. While it is known that adherent cells physiologically respond to the mechanical properties of their underlying matrices, how blood cells interact with their mechanical microenvironment of vascular matrices remains poorly understood. To that end, we developed microfluidic systems that achieve high fidelity, high resolution, single-micron PDMS features that mimic the physical geometries of vascular matrices...

Panax notoginseng medicinal liquor (PML) has a long history of use in the function of blood circulation. However, the processing of PML is currently dependent on experience, which results in low efficiency and unstable quality of PML. A variety of substances of P. notoginseng have a strong ability to scavenge free radicals and antioxidant activity, but the antioxidant activity of PML has not been formally researched. The aim of the present study was to optimize the processing technology of PML and to verify the anti-oxidation and anti-deposition of melanin functions of PML...

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) have been recently accepted as prognostic markers in metastatic prostate cancer (PCa). However, very few studies have analyzed their role in early-stage PCa. The aim of this research is to study the value of CTCs at the moment of PCa diagnosis and to identify different subpopulations of CTCs. Patients with PSA value > 4 ng/ml and clinical suspicion of PCa were included. Samples were collected immediately before prostatic biopsy. CTCs were isolated by immunomagnetic technique using a multi-CK specific antibody...

A priority for biomedical research is to understand the causes of variation in susceptibility to infection. To investigate genetic variation in a model system, we used flies collected from single populations of three different species of Drosophila and artificially selected them for resistance to the parasitoid wasp Leptopilina boulardi, and found that survival rates increased 3 to 30 fold within 6 generations. Resistance in all three species involves a large increase in the number of the circulating hemocytes that kill parasitoids...

Chiral plasmonic nanostructures have been studied widely in past years and have various applications in biological sensing, negative refractive indexing, and analytical chemistry. Dolmen is also a commonly used nanostructure in many recent research papers. By placing dolmens in different directions and forming a double-layer dolmen array (DLDA), a new nanostructure with good circular dichroism (CD) effect is designed in this paper. We get up to the maximum of 0.5 of CD effect through numerical simulation. Among three obvious resonance wavelengths of CD effect, magnetic dipole resonance appears in two of them and contributes to the origin of a strong CD effect...

BACKGROUND: Fracture haematoma formation is the first and foremost important stage of fracture healing. It orchestrates the inflammatory and cellular processes leading to the formation of callus and the restoration of the continuity of the bone. Evidence suggests that blocking this initial stage could lead to an impairment of the overall bone healing process. This review aims to analyse the existing evidence of molecular contributions to bone healing within fracture haematoma, and to determine the potential to modify the molecular response to fracture in the haematoma with the aim of improving union times...

This article takes the reader inside four border security fairs in Europe and North America to examine the knowledge practices of border security professionals. Building on the border security as practice research agenda, the analysis focuses on the production, circulation, and consumption of scarce forms of knowledge. To explore situated knowledge of border security practices, I develop an approach to multi-sited event ethnography to observe and interpret knowledge that may be hard to access at the security fairs...

BACKGROUND: Social media provides a context for billions of users to connect, express sentiments, and provide in-the-moment status updates. Because Twitter users tend to tweet emotional updates from daily life, the platform provides unique insights into experiences of mental health problems. Depression is not only one of the most prevalent health conditions but also carries a social stigma. Yet, opening up about one's depression and seeking social support may provide relief from symptoms...

OBJECTIVE: Longitudinal studies support a prospective relationship between weight suppression (WS) and bulimic syndrome (BN-S) maintenance. Although biobehavioral mechanisms have been proposed to explain this link, such mechanisms have yet to be identified. Given that weight loss would reduce leptin levels which may influence eating, this study examined whether reduced leptin levels mediate the link between greater WS and longer illness duration. METHOD: Women (N = 53), ages 18-45 years, were recruited from the community if they met criteria for a BN-S, including either DSM-5 bulimia nervosa (BN; n = 33) or purging disorder (PD: n = 20), and fell within a healthy weight range (18...

The ability to characterize the mechanical properties of erythrocytes is important in clinical and research contexts: to diagnose and monitor hematologic disorders, as well as to optimize the design of cardiovascular implants and blood circulating devices with respect to blood damage. However, investigation of red blood cell (RBC) properties generally involves preparatory and processing steps. Even though these impose mechanical stresses on cells, little is known about their impact on the final measurement results...

Background -Infants with ductal-dependent pulmonary blood flow may undergo palliation with either a patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) stent or modified Blalock-Taussig (BT) shunt. A balanced multi-center comparison of these two approaches is lacking. Methods -Infants with ductal-dependent pulmonary blood flow, palliated with either PDA stent or BT shunt from 1/08 to 11/15, were reviewed from the four member centers of the Congenital Catheterization Research Collaborative. Outcomes were compared using propensity score adjustment to account for baseline differences between groups...

Nitric oxide (NO) production plays a central role in conferring tolerance to hypoxia. Tibetan highlanders, successful high-altitude dwellers for millennia, have higher circulating nitrate and exhaled NO (ENO) levels than native lowlanders. Since nitrate itself can reduce the oxygen cost of exercise in normoxia it may confer additional benefits at high altitude. Xtreme Alps was a double-blinded randomised placebo-controlled trial to investigate how dietary nitrate supplementation affects physiological responses to hypoxia in 28 healthy adult volunteers resident at 4559 m for 1 week; 14 receiving a beetroot-based high-nitrate supplement and 14 receiving a low-nitrate 'placebo' of matching appearance/taste...

STUDY QUESTION: How do nano-vesicles extruded from normal first trimester human placentae affect maternal vascular function? SUMMARY ANSWER: Placental nano-vesicles affect the ability of systemic mesenteric arteries to undergo endothelium- and nitric oxide- (NO-) dependent vasodilation in vivo in pregnant mice. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY: Dramatic cardiovascular adaptations occur during human pregnancy, including a substantial decrease in total peripheral resistance in the first trimester...