Journal of investigative medicine : the official publication of the American Federation for Clinical Research
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Low vitamin D levels have been associated with asthma severity in children. Young, urban African Americans (AAs) have high rates of hypovitaminosis D and asthma. Our objective was to determine associations between variants in vitamin D metabolism genes and asthma characteristics in a pilot study of young urban AAs. ⋯ This pilot study demonstrates that variants in vitamin D metabolism genes are associated with quantitative asthma characteristics in young, urban AAs. The collection of these associations provides evidence for the need for a large population-based study of vitamin D-relevant SNPs in this cohort.
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Adiponectin (APN) is a potent cardioprotective molecule. The present study aims to investigate the underlying mechanism(s) for its cardioprotective effect. We isolated primary cardiomyocytes from neonatal rats and established an in vitro model of hypoxia/reoxygenation (H/R). ⋯ Cardiomyocytes exposed to H/R showed a significant increase in lactate dehydrogenase leakage and hypoxia-inducible factor 1α protein levels compared with the control cells (P < 0.05). The H/R-provoked cell death was profoundly attenuated by the pretreatment with APN alone, SB alone, or both, which was coupled with decreased expression of GRP78, caspase-12, C/EBP homologous protein, and p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase. These results provide new insights into the mechanism of APN-mediated cardioprotection, which may be partially due to inhibition of endoplasmic reticulum stress response.