Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Effective Measures Of Weight Gain Five Years Post-Kidney Transplantation, Tara Calico Cherry

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

BACKGROUND: Weight gain is commonly observed post-kidney transplantation and is associated with unfavorable health outcomes, such as graft loss, new onset diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. The purpose of this study was to determine the most effective measure for assessing body composition after kidney transplantation.

DESIGN: The study was a descriptive correlational follow-up study from a single kidney transplant site.

SUBJECTS: A total of 45 eligible patients from a 2007-2011 parent study were selected, ages of 37 to 78.

MEASUREMENTS: Body composition was obtained 5–8 years posttransplant via anthropometric measures (waist circumference, body mass index, and dual energy X-ray …

Increased Mitochondrial Calpain-1 Is An Important Mechanism Contributing To Mitochondrial Ros Generation In Cardiac Diseases, Rui Ni

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Both calpain activation and excessive mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (mtROS) have been implicated in the pathogenesis of cardiac diseases. We investigated whether and how calpain regulates mtROS generation in mediating cardiac diseases.

In mouse models of streptozotocin-induced type-1 diabetes and lipopolysaccharides- induced sepsis, we show that the protein levels of calpain-1 and calpain activities in mitochondria were significantly elevated in diabetic and septic hearts. The elevation of mitochondrial calpain-1 correlated with an increase in mtROS generation and oxidative damage. Importantly, cardiomyocyte-specific deletion of capns1 disrupted calpain-1 and calpain-2 in the heart and prevented mtROS generation in both septic and diabetic …

Mechanisms And Potential Therapy On Disrupted Blood Pressure Circadian Rhythm In Diabetes, Tianfei Hou

Theses and Dissertations--Pharmacology and Nutritional Sciences

Arterial blood pressure (BP) undergoes a 24-hour oscillation that peaks in the active day and reaches a nadir at night during sleep in humans. Reduced nocturnal BP fall (also known as non-dipper) is the most common disruption of BP circadian rhythm and is associated with increased risk of untoward cardiovascular events and target organ injury. Up to 75% of diabetic patients are non-dippers. However, the mechanisms underlying diabetes associated non-dipping BP are largely unknown. To address this important question, we generated a novel diabetic db/db-mPer2^Luc mouse model (db/db-mPer2^Luc) that allows quantitatively measuring of mPER2 protein oscillation …