Protein glycosylation is an essential posttranslational modification that affects a myriad of physiologic processes. Humans with genetic defects in glycosylation, which result in truncated glycans, often present with significant cardiac deficits. Acquired …

Background: DRAM1 (Damage-regulated autophagy modulator 1) was reported as 1 one of the most important lysosome membrane protein that mediates the interaction between autophagosome and lysosome. Our aim was to investigate whether DRAM1 contributes to …

Background: The function of preadipocytes in the progression of early stage breast cancer has not been fully elucidated at the molecular level. To delineate the role of preadipocytes in breast cancer progression, we investigated the cross-talk between …

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection is an established risk factor for pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), however the pathogenesis of HIV-related PAH remains unclear. Since K+ channel dysfunction is a common marker in most forms of PAH, our …

One cause for suboptimal photoacoustic tomography (PAT) penetration depth is attenuation of incident light by soft tissue. To better understand this problem, we investigated the effects of illumination fiber optic bundle geometry on PAT penetration depth …

Bariatric surgery has been reported to relieve diabetic cardiomyopathy (DCM) effectively. However, the mechanisms remain largely unknown. To determine the effects of bariatric surgery on DCM via modulation of myocardial Ca2+ homeostasis and autophagy, …

A major obstacle in the monitoring and treatment of neurological diseases is the blood brain barrier (BBB), a semipermeable barrier that prevents the delivery of many therapeutics and imaging contrast agents to the brain. In this work, we explored the …

Nuclear-encoded mutations causing metabolic and degenerative diseases have highly variable expres- sivity. Patients sharing the homozygous mutation (c.523delC) in the adenine nucleotide translocator 1 gene (SLC25A4, ANT1) develop cardiomyopathy that …

Cardiac hypertrophy occurs in response to multiple stimuli and develops into congestive heart failure with morbidity and mortality. Dioscin exerts protective effects against tumor growth and ischemia/reperfusion injury. However, whether and how dioscin …

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a neuromuscular disorder causing progressive muscle degeneration. Although cardiomyopathy is a leading mortality cause in DMD patients, the mechanisms underlying heart failure are not well understood. Previously, we …