3,134 publications from this institution
Despite a shorter half-life, 160 mg/day valsartan was more effective in lowering blood pressure over 24 h than 80 mg/day telmisartan. Furthermore, valsartan was also more effective in lowering arterial pulse pressure, an observation that may have important therapeutic implications, given the mounting evidence that pulse pressure may be a risk factor for future cardiovascular events.
Abstract Aureusidin, a derivative of aurone, imparts a vibrant yellow hue to numerous yellow‐rich plants, such as sunflowers and snapdragons. The bright yellow color provides an excellent pigment of choice for plant breeders to cultivate different‐colored hybrid species. The biosynthesis of aureusidin relies on a key aureusidin synthase enzyme, which belongs to the plant polyphenol oxidase family. The revelation of its DNA sequence, coupled with transgenic technology, has opened up possibilities for producing exceptionally stunning flower plants. Moreover, aureusidin exhibits remarkable bioactivities in vitro, including anti‐microbial, anti‐viral, anti‐cancer, anti‐inflammatory, anti‐oxidant, anti‐diabetic, anti‐hypercholesterolemic, anti‐hyperuricemia, histone deacetylase inhibitory, and neuropharmacological properties. However, the majority of studies have focused on in vitro experiments, rather than in vivo disease models, toxicological assessments, and human clinical trials. This review provides a comprehensive overview of all research advancements pertaining to aureusidin highlighting future perspectives to maximize its value, hereby contributing to the application of medicine, agricultural, and biotechnology fields. More studies are needed in the future to assess its toxicology, safety, and biotransformation for potential incorporation in future nutraceuticals.
The genetic code provides the translation table necessary to transform the information contained in DNA into the language of proteins. In this table, a correspondence between each codon and each amino acid is established: tRNA is the main adaptor that links the two. Although the genetic code is nearly universal, several variants of this code have been described in a wide range of nuclear and organellar systems, especially in metazoan mitochondria. These variants are generally found by searching for conserved positions that consistently code for a specific alternative amino acid in a new species. We have devised an accurate computational method to automate these comparisons, and have tested it with 626 metazoan mitochondrial genomes. Our results indicate that several arthropods have a new genetic code and translate the codon AGG as lysine instead of serine (as in the invertebrate mitochondrial genetic code) or arginine (as in the standard genetic code). We have investigated the evolution of the genetic code in the arthropods and found several events of parallel evolution in which the AGG codon was reassigned between serine and lysine. Our analyses also revealed correlated evolution between the arthropod genetic codes and the tRNA-Lys/-Ser, which show specific point mutations at the anticodons. These rather simple mutations, together with a low usage of the AGG codon, might explain the recurrence of the AGG reassignments.
The pharmacokinetics (PK) - absorption, distribution, metabolism, and elimination - and pharmacodynamics (PD) of hypertension medications can be significantly affected by circadian rhythms. As a consequence, the time when blood pressure (BP) lowering medications are ingested, with reference to the staging of all involved circadian rhythms modulating PK and PD, can affect their duration of action, magnitude of effect on features of the 24 h BP profile, and safety. We conducted a systematic and comprehensive review of published prospective human trials that investigated individual hypertension medications of all classes and their combinations for ingestion-time differences in BP-lowering, safety, patient adherence, and markers of hypertension-associated target organ pathology of the kidney and heart. The systematic review yielded 155 trials published between 1976 and 2020 - totaling 23,972 hypertensive individuals - that evaluated 37 different single and 14 dual-combination therapies. The vast (83.9%) majority of them reported clinically and statistically significant benefits - including enhanced reduction of asleep BP mean without induced sleep-time hypotension, reduced prevalence of the higher cardiovascular risk non-dipper 24 h BP profile, decreased incidence of adverse effects, improved kidney function, and reduced cardiac pathology - when hypertension medications are ingested at-bedtime/evening rather than upon-waking/morning. Nonetheless, the findings and conclusions of some past conducted trials are inconsistent, often due to disparities and deficiencies of the investigative protocols. Accordingly, we developed a quality assessment method based upon the eight items identified as crucial according to the recently published guidelines of the International Society for Chronobiology and the American Association for Medical Chronobiology and Chronotherapeutics for the design and conduct of human clinical trials on ingestion-time differences of hypertension medications. Among the most frequent deficiencies are: absence or miscalculation of minimum required sample size (83.2%), incorrect choice of primary BP endpoint (53.6%), and inappropriate arbitrary and unrepresentative clock hours chosen for tested treatment times (53.6%). The inability of the very small proportion (16.1%) of trials to verify the advantages of the at-bedtime/evening treatment strategy is likely explained by deficiencies of their study design and conduct. Nonetheless, regardless of the quality score of the 155 trials retrieved by our systematic review, it is most noteworthy that no single published prospective randomized trial reported significantly enhanced BP-lowering, safety, compliance, or other benefits of the unjustified by medical evidence, yet still most recommended, upon-waking/morning hypertension treatment-time scheme.
Abstract — — With the aim of describing the predictable pattern of blood pressure (BP) variability during gestation, we analyzed 2430 BP series systematically sampled by ambulatory monitoring for 48 consecutive hours every 4 weeks from the first obstetric visit (usually within the first trimester of pregnancy) until delivery in 235 normotensive women, 128 women who developed gestational hypertension, and 40 women who had a final diagnosis of preeclampsia. The pattern of variation along gestation of the 24-hour means of BP and heart rate was established for each group of women by polynomial regression analysis. For normotensive women, results indicate a steady decrease in BP up to 20 weeks of pregnancy, followed by an increase in BP up to the day of delivery, with an average 8% BP increase between the middle of gestation and delivery. In complicated pregnancies, BP is stable until the 22nd week of gestation and then increases linearly for the remainder of the pregnancy. Complicated pregnancies are characterized by a 9% and 13% increase in systolic and diastolic BPs, respectively, during the second half of gestation. Results also indicate that during the first half of pregnancy, systolic but not diastolic BP is slightly elevated in women who developed preeclampsia compared with those who developed gestational hypertension. During the second half of gestation, the linear trend of increasing BP for women who developed preeclampsia has a significantly higher slope than the trend for women with gestational hypertension. For both healthy and complicated pregnancies, heart rate increases until the end of the second trimester and slightly decreases thereafter. This study of women systematically sampled by 48-hour ambulatory BP monitoring throughout gestation confirms the predictable pregnancy-associated variability in BP and provides proper information for the establishment of reference limits for BP to be used in the early diagnosis of hypertensive complications in pregnancy. Those limits should be developed as a function of gestational age, taking into account the trends in BP throughout pregnancy demonstrated here.
