Use of electronic cigarettes is rapidly increasing among youth and young adults, but little is known regarding the long-term cardiopulmonary health impacts of these nicotine-containing devices. Our group has previously demonstrated that chronic, inhaled …

Microbubbles (MBs) hold promise in various biomedical applications due to their ultrasound-responsive properties. However, the stability and contrast enhancement duration of gas encapsulated MBs are still challenging. The aim of this study is to fabricate …

ABSTRACT Background Tumor endothelial marker 1 (TEM1) is a protein expressed in the tumor- associated endothelium and/or stroma of various types of cancer. We previously demonstrated that immunization with a plasmid- DNA vaccine targeting TEM1 reduced …

Right ventricular (RV) remodeling and longitudinal fiber reorientation in the setting of pulmonary hypertension (PH) affects ventricular structure and function, eventually leading to RV failure. Characterizing the kinematics of myocardial fibers helps …

Aim: Recent evidence suggests that arterial hypertension could be alternatively explained as a physiological adaptation response to water shortage, termed aestivation, which relies on complex multi-organ metabolic adjustments to prevent dehydration. Here, …

Interleukin-17 (IL-17), also called IL-17A, is an important regulator of cardiac diseases, but its role in calcium-related cardiac dysfunction remains to be explored. Thus, we investigated the influence of IL-17 on calcium handling process and its …

Traditional Chinese medicine has shown great safety and efficacy in the treatment of heart failure (HF), whereas the mechanism remains unclear. In this study, the protective effect of Yixin-shu (YXS) capsules, a conventional medicine for various …

The obesity epidemic has increased type II diabetes mellitus (T2DM) across devel- oped countries. Cardiac T2DM risks include ischemic heart disease, heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, intolerance to ischemia- reperfusion (I- R) injury, and …

Automatic boundary detection of 4D ultrasound (4DUS) cardiac data is a promising yet challenging application at the intersection of machine learning and medicine. Using recently developed murine 4DUS cardiac imaging data, we demonstrate here a set of …

Aims Angiotensin (Ang) II signalling has been suggested to promote cardiac fibrosis in inflammatory heart diseases; how- ever, the underlying mechanisms remain obscure. Using Agtr1a-/- mice with genetic deletion of angiotensin receptor type 1 (ATR1) and …