Rabbit Anti-PRKDC monoclonal antibody, clone TD68-19

The molecular cause(s) for early onset heart failure in people living with HIV-1 infection (PLWH) remains poorly defined. Herein, longitudinal echocardiography was used to assess whether NOD.Cg-Prkdc(scid) Il2rgt(m1Wjl)/SzJ mice reconstituted with human hematopoietic stem cells (Hu-NSG mice) and infected with HIV-1(ADA) can recapitulate the salient features of this progressive human disease. Four weeks post infection, Hu-NSG mice of both sexes developed left ventricular (LV) diastolic dysfunction (DD), with 25% exhibiting grade III/IV restrictive DD with mitral regurgitation. Increases in global longitudinal and circumferential strains and declines in LV ejection fraction and fractional shortening were observed eight weeks post infection. After twelve weeks of infection, 33% of Hu-NSG mice exhibited LV dyskinesia and dyssynchrony. Histopathological analyses of hearts seventeen weeks post infection revealed coronary microvascular leakage, fibrosis and immune cell infiltration into the myocardium. These data show for the first time that HIV-1(ADA)-infected Hu-NSG mice can recapitulate key left ventricular cardiac deficits and pathophysiological changes reported in humans with progressive HIV-1 infection. The results also suggest that HIV-1 infected Hu-NSG mice may be a useful model to screen for pharmacological agents to blunt LV dysfunction and associated pathophysiologic causes reported in PLWH.

Background: To elucidate gene expression associated with copy number changes, we performed a genome-wide copy number and expression microarray analysis of 25 pairs of gastric tissues. Methods: We applied laser capture microdissection (LCM) to obtain samples for microarray experiments and profiled DNA copy number and gene expression using 244K CGH Microarray and Human Exon 1.0 ST Microarray. Results: Obviously, gain at 8q was detected at the highest frequency (70%) and 20q at the second (63%). We also identified molecular genetic divergences for different TNM-stages or histological subtypes of gastric cancers. Interestingly, the C20orf11 amplification and gain at 20q13.33 almost separated moderately differentiated (MD) gastric cancers from poorly differentiated (PD) type. A set of 163 genes showing the correlations between gene copy number and expression was selected and the identified genes were able to discriminate matched adjacent noncancerous samples from gastric cancer samples in an unsupervised two-way hierarchical clustering. Quantitative RT-PCR analysis for 4 genes (C20orf11, XPO5, PUF60, and PLOD3) of the 163 genes validated the microarray results. Notably, some candidate genes (MCM4 and YWHAZ) and its adjacent genes such as PRKDC, UBE2V2, ANKRD46, ZNF706, and GRHL2, were concordantly deregulated by genomic aberrations. Conclusions: Taken together, our results reveal diverse chromosomal region alterations for different TNM-stages or histological subtypes of gastric cancers, which is helpful in researching clinicopathological classification, and highlight several interesting genes as potential biomarkers for gastric cancer.