Exogenous pharmacological means, including calpastatin-based inhibitors, have been considered for therapy of various diseases in which calpain is implicated. Mycoplasmas provide the first naturally occurring biological system that upregulates the endogenous calpain inhibitor, and thus may be of interest in devising treatments for some disorders, such as neurodegenerative diseases. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“The
metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a major public health problem in the United States. Chronic inflammation is a critical component of the MetS, leading to dramatically increased risk of type II diabetes and cardiovascular disease.\n\nThis study investigates the ability of a wild-blueberry-enriched diet to improve the proinflammatory status associated with MetS in the obese Zucker rat (OZR). Circulating Cl-amidine levels of key inflammatory markers and their expression in the liver and abdominal adipose tissue were examined in OZR and its genetic control, the lean Zucker rat (LZR), after feeding a control or an 8% wild blueberry diet (WB) for 8 weeks from age 8 to 16 weeks.\n\nIn the OZR, WB consumption MDV3100 resulted in decreased plasma
concentrations of tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha (-25.6%, P<.05), interleukin (IL)-6 (14.9%, P<.05) and C-reactive protein (CRP) (-13.1%, P<.05) and increased adiponectin concentration (+21.8%, P<.05). Furthermore, expression of IL-6, INF-alpha and nuclear factor (NF)-kappa B was down-regulated in both the liver (-65%, -59% and -25%, respectively) and the abdominal adipose tissue (-64%, -52% and -65%), while CRP expression was down-regulated only in
the liver (-25%). In the abdominal adipose tissue, similar trends were also observed in LZR following WB treatment, with decreased liver expression of NF-kappa B, CRP, IL-6 and INF-a (-24%, -16%, -21% and -50%) and increased adiponectin expression (+25%).\n\nResults of this Nutlin-3 cost study suggest that wild blueberry consumption exerts an overall anti-inflammatory effect in the OZR, a model of the metabolic syndrome. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.”
“Injury to the central nervous system is characterized by localization of activated microglia at the site of injury. The peripheral benzodiazepine receptor expressed on the outer mitochondrial membrane of the activated microglia is a sensitive biomarker for the detection of this neuroinflammatory response to an insult. PK11195, an isoquinoline ligand that specifically binds peripheral benzodiazepine receptor, can be tagged with a positron emitter and used as a tracer for molecular imaging of this receptor in vivo by positron emission tomography (PET). [(11)C](B)PK11195 has been used in the imaging of various neuroinflammatory disorders, such as Alzheimer disease and multiple sclerosis.