Publications

BACKGROUND

Many allergic conditions occur more frequently in African American patients when compared with white patients; however, it is not known whether this represents genetic predisposition or disparate environmental exposures.

OBJECTIVE

We sought to assess the relationship of self-reported race and genetic ancestry to allergic sensitization.

METHODS

We included 601 women enrolled in a population-based cohort study whose self-reported race was African American or white. Genetic ancestry was estimated by using markers that differentiate West African and European ancestry. We assessed the relationship between allergic sensitization (defined as > or =1 allergen-specific IgE results) and both self-reported race and genetic ancestry. Regression models adjusted for sociodemographic variables, environmental exposures, and location of residence.

RESULTS

The average proportion of West African ancestry in African American participants was 0.69, whereas the mean proportion of European ancestry in white participants was 0.79. Self-reported African American race was associated with allergic sensitization when compared with those who reported being white (adjusted odds ratio, 2.19; 95% CI, 1.22-3.93), even after adjusting for other variables. Genetic ancestry was not significantly associated with allergic sensitization after accounting for location of residence (adjusted odds ratio, 2.09 for urban vs suburban residence; 95% CI, 1.32-3.31).

CONCLUSION

Self-reported race and location of residence appeared to be more important predictors of allergic sensitization when compared with genetic ancestry, suggesting that the disparity in allergic sensitization by race might be primarily a result of environmental factors rather than genetic differences.

BACKGROUND

Moringa oleifera is a tropical tree often used as a herbal medicine, including by people who test positive for HIV. Since herbal constituents may interact with drugs via inhibition of metabolizing enzymes, we investigated the effects of extracts of M. oleifera on the CYP3A4-mediated 6beta-hydroxylation of testosterone.

METHODS

Methanolic and aqueous leaf and root of extracts of M. oleifera with concentrations between 0.01 and 10 mg/ml were incubated with testosterone and mixed-sex human liver microsomes in the presence of NADPH. Metabolite concentrations were determined by HPLC. The cytotoxicity of the extracts was tested with HepG2 cells using the MTT formazan assay.

RESULTS

Significant CYP3A4 inhibitory effects were found, with IC50 values of 0.5 and 2.5 mg/ml for leaf-methanol and leaf-water extracts, respectively. Root extracts were less active. Cytotoxicity was observed only with the leaf-water extract (IC50 = 6 mg/ml).

CONCLUSIONS

Further investigation is warranted to elucidate the potential of M. oleifera for clinically significant interactions with antiretroviral and other drugs.

BACKGROUND

Regenerative therapies, including myocardial tissue engineering, have been pursued as a new possibility to repair the damaged myocardium, and previously the transplantation of layered cardiomyocyte sheets has been shown to be able to improve cardiac function after myocardial infarction. We examined the effects of promoting neovascularization by controlling the densities of cocultured endothelial cells (ECs) within engineered myocardial tissues created using our cell sheet-based tissue engineering approach.

METHODS AND RESULTS

Neonatal rat cardiomyocytes were cocultured with GFP-positive rat-derived ECs on temperature-responsive culture dishes. Cocultured ECs formed cell networks within the cardiomyocyte sheets, which were preserved during cell harvest from the dishes using simple temperature reduction. We also observed significantly increased in vitro production of vessel-forming cytokines by the EC-positive cardiac cell sheets. After layering of 3 cardiac cell sheets to create 3-dimensional myocardial tissues, these patch-like tissue grafts were transplanted onto infarcted rat hearts. Four weeks after transplantation, recovery of cardiac function could be significantly improved by increasing the EC densities within the engineered myocardial tissues. Additionally, when the EC-positive cardiac tissues were transplanted to myocardial infarction models, we observed significantly greater numbers of capillaries in the grafts as compared with the EC-negative cell sheets. Finally, blood vessels originating from the engineered EC-positive cardiac tissues bridged into the infarcted myocardium to connect with capillaries of the host heart.

CONCLUSIONS

In vitro engineering of 3-dimensional cardiac tissues with preformed EC networks that can be easily connected to host vessels can contribute to the reconstruction of myocardial tissue grafts with a high potential for cardiac function repair. These results indicate that neovascularization can contribute to improved cardiac function after the transplantation of engineered cardiac tissues.

There are currently 25 drugs belonging to 6 different inhibitor classes approved for the treatment of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. However, new anti-HIV agents are still needed to confront the emergence of drug resistance and various adverse effects associated with long-term use of antiretroviral therapy. The 21st International Conference on Antiviral Research, held in April 2008 in Montreal, Canada, therefore featured a special session focused on novel targets for HIV therapy. The session included presentations by world-renowned experts in HIV virology and covered a diverse array of potential targets for the development of new classes of HIV therapies. This review contains concise summaries of discussed topics that included Vif-APOBEC3G, LEDGF/p75, TRIM 5alpha, virus assembly and maturation, and Vpu. The described viral and host factors represent some of the most noted examples of recent scientific breakthroughs that are opening unexplored avenues to novel anti-HIV target discovery and validation, and should feed the antiretroviral drug development pipeline in the near future.