| 1. |
- Metra, M., et al.
(författare)
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Effects of low-dose oral enoximone administration on mortality, morbidity, and exercise capacity in patients with advanced heart failure: the randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel group ESSENTIAL trials
- 2009
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Ingår i: European Journal of Heart Failure. - 1522-9645. ; 30:24, s. 3015-26
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- AIMS: Use of inotropic agents in patients with heart failure (HF) has been limited by adverse effects on outcomes. However, administration of positive inotropes at lower doses and concomitant treatment with beta-blockers might increase benefit-risk ratio. We investigated the effects of low doses of the positive inotrope enoximone on symptoms, exercise capacity, and major clinical outcomes in patients with advanced HF who were also treated with beta-blockers and other guideline-recommended background therapy. METHODS AND RESULTS: The Studies of Oral Enoximone Therapy in Advanced HF (ESSENTIAL) programme consisted of two identical, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials that differed only by geographic location (North and South America: ESSENTIAL-I; Europe: ESSENTIAL-II). Patients with New York Heart Association class III-IV HF symptoms, left ventricular ejection fraction < or = 30%, and one hospitalization or two ambulatory visits for worsening HF in the previous year were eligible for participation in the trials. The trials had three co-primary endpoints: (i) the composite of time to all-cause mortality or cardiovascular hospitalization, analysed in the two ESSENTIAL trials combined; (ii) the 6 month change from baseline in the 6 min walk test distance (6MWTD); and (iii) the Patient Global Assessment (PGA) at 6 months, both analysed in each trial separately. ESSENTIAL-I and -II randomized 1854 subjects at 211 sites in 16 countries. In the combined trials, all-cause mortality and the composite, first co-primary endpoint did not differ between the two treatment groups [hazard ratio (HR) 0.97; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.80-1.17; and HR 0.98; 95% CI 0.86-1.12, respectively, for enoximone vs. placebo]. The two other co-primary endpoints were analysed separately in the two ESSENTIAL trials, as prospectively designed in the protocol. The 6MWTD increased with enoximone, compared with placebo, in ESSENTIAL-I (P = 0.025, not reaching, however, the pre-specified criterion for statistical significance of P < 0.020), but not in ESSENTIAL-II. No difference in PGA was observed in either trial. CONCLUSION: Although low-dose enoximone appears to be safe in patients with advanced HF, major clinical outcomes are not improved.
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| 2. |
- Abraham, N G, et al.
(författare)
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Metabolic syndrome : psychosocial, neuroendocrine, and classical risk factors in type 2 diabetes
- 2007
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Ingår i: Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. - : Wiley. - 0077-8923 .- 1749-6632. ; 1113, s. 256-275
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article summarizes some aspects of stress in the metabolic syndrome at the psychosocial, tissue, and cellular levels. The metabolic syndrome is a valuable research concept for studying population health and social-biological translation. The cluster of cardiovascular risk factors labeled the metabolic syndrome is linked with low socioeconomic status. Systematic differences in diet and physical activity contribute to social patterning of the syndrome. In addition, psychosocial factors including chronic work stress are linked with its development. Psychosocial factors could lead to metabolic perturbations and increase cardiovascular risk via activation of neuroendocrine responses, for example, in the autonomic nervous system and in several hormonal pathways. High glucocorticoid levels will promote lipid storage in visceral rather than subcutaneous adipose tissue. Adipocytes secrete several proinflammatory cytokines, which considered major contributors to increase in oxidants and cell injury. Upregulation of heme oxygenase 1 (HO-1) and peroxidase in the early development of diabetes produces a decrease in oxidative-mediated injury. Increased HO activity is associated with a significant decrease in superoxide, endothelial cell shedding and blood pressure. Finally, it is proposed that overexpression of glutathione peroxidase in beta cells may protect beta cell deterioration from oxidative stress during development of diabetes and hyperglycemia and this may result in attenuation of beta cell failure. If this proves to be the case, then the scene will be set to develop glutathione peroxidase mimetics for use in preclinical and clinical trials.
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| 3. |
- Chapman, Henry N., et al.
(författare)
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Femtosecond diffractive imaging with a soft-X-ray free-electron laser
- 2006
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Ingår i: Nature Physics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1745-2473 .- 1745-2481. ; 2:12, s. 839-843
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Theory predicts(1-4) that, with an ultrashort and extremely bright coherent X-ray pulse, a single diffraction pattern may be recorded from a large macromolecule, a virus or a cell before the sample explodes and turns into a plasma. Here we report the first experimental demonstration of this principle using the FLASH soft-X-ray free-electron laser. An intense 25 fs, 4 x 10(13) W cm(-2) pulse, containing 10(12) photons at 32 nm wavelength, produced a coherent diffraction pattern from a nanostructured non-periodic object, before destroying it at 60,000 K. A novel X-ray camera assured single-photon detection sensitivity by filtering out parasitic scattering and plasma radiation. The reconstructed image, obtained directly from the coherent pattern by phase retrieval through oversampling(5-9), shows no measurable damage, and is reconstructed at the diffraction-limited resolution. A three-dimensional data set may be assembled from such images when copies of a reproducible sample are exposed to the beam one by one(10).
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| 4. |
- Li, Jin Billy, et al.
(författare)
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Multiplex padlock targeted sequencing reveals human hypermutable CpG variations
- 2009
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Ingår i: Genome Research. - : Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. - 1088-9051 .- 1549-5469. ; 19:9, s. 1606-1615
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Utilizing the full power of next-generation sequencing often requires the ability to perform large-scale multiplex enrichment of many specific genomic loci in multiple samples. Several technologies have been recently developed but await substantial improvements. We report the 10,000-fold improvement of a previously developed padlock-based approach, and apply the assay to identifying genetic variations in hypermutable CpG regions across human chromosome 21. From approximately 3 million reads derived from a single Illumina Genome Analyzer lane, approximately 94% (approximately 50,500) target sites can be observed with at least one read. The uniformity of coverage was also greatly improved; up to 93% and 57% of all targets fell within a 100- and 10-fold coverage range, respectively. Alleles at >400,000 target base positions were determined across six subjects and examined for single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), and the concordance with independently obtained genotypes was 98.4%-100%. We detected >500 SNPs not currently in dbSNP, 362 of which were in targeted CpG locations. Transitions in CpG sites were at least 13.7 times more abundant than non-CpG transitions. Fractions of polymorphic CpG sites are lower in CpG-rich regions and show higher correlation with human-chimpanzee divergence within CpG versus non-CpG sites. This is consistent with the hypothesis that methylation rate heterogeneity along chromosomes contributes to mutation rate variation in humans. Our success suggests that targeted CpG resequencing is an efficient way to identify common and rare genetic variations. In addition, the significantly improved padlock capture technology can be readily applied to other projects that require multiplex sample preparation.
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| 5. |
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| 6. |
- Marchesini, Stefano, et al.
(författare)
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Massively parallel X-ray holography
- 2008
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Ingår i: Nature Photonics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1749-4885 .- 1749-4893. ; 2:9, s. 560-563
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Advances in the development of free-electron lasers offer the realistic prospect of nanoscale imaging on the timescale of atomic motions. We identify X-ray Fourier-transform holography(1,2,3) as a promising but, so far, inefficient scheme to do this. We show that a uniformly redundant array(4) placed next to the sample, multiplies the efficiency of X-ray Fourier transform holography by more than three orders of magnitude, approaching that of a perfect lens, and provides holographic images with both amplitude-and phase-contrast information. The experiments reported here demonstrate this concept by imaging a nano-fabricated object at a synchrotron source, and a bacterial cell with a soft-X-ray free-electron laser, where illumination by a single 15-fs pulse was successfully used in producing the holographic image. As X-ray lasers move to shorter wavelengths we expect to obtain higher spatial resolution ultrafast movies of transient states of matter.
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