Browsing by Subject "Blood vessels"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Degenerative physiochemical events in the pathological intervertebral disc
    (Universidad de Murcia, Departamento de Biologia Celular e Histiologia, 2022) Lama, Polly; Tewari, Jerina; Adams, Michael A; Le Maitre, Christine
    . Low back pain is one of the commonest musculoskeletal complaints that affects individuals of all ages and is a leading contributor towards work loss worldwide. The range of current treatment modalities involving surgeries, injectable agents, and medications is promising but cannot address the reasons behind the occurrence of pain in patients with degenerative disc pathologies. One possible factor for the limited success is the lack of evidence behind the identification of early, intermediate, and late stages of painful changes methodologically in a vast group of populations and the manifestation of the diseases in terms of increased physical activity, hereditary patterns, and various risk factors. However, despite these challenges, steady progress has been achieved in understanding the parameters in abnormally loaded progressively degenerating discs and these features have been elucidated at a physical, biochemical, and cellular level. These recent findings can likely lead to the development of therapeutic interventions that will identify and retard tissue damage, decrease pain, and improve the quality of life in these patients. Therefore, the main aim of this review is to integrate recent updates in intervertebral disc degeneration research for the development of evidence-based screening protocols and more targeted interventions in the management of low back pain.
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    Endothelial heat shock response in cerebral ischemia
    (Murcia : F. Hernández, 2007) Scumpia, A.J.; Kafel, J.; Hallas, B.H.; Horowitz, J.M.; Torres, G.
    Blood vessels and nerve fibers often course alongside one another in an orderly fashion throughout the brain. This clustering gives rise to a reciprocal signaling network between endothelial and nerve cells that follows highly stereotyped anatomical patterns. One such molecular signal that is produced by endothelial cells and acts on surrounding neurons is heat shock protein 70. Here we briefly review recent studies that have revealed a critical role of this signaling pathway during harmful insults to the brain, particularly during episodes of cerebral ischemia.
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    Nitric oxide synthase in the pineal gland
    (Murcia : F. Hernández, 1996) Lopez-Figueroa, M.O.; Moller, M.
    The recent discovery of nitric oxide (NO) as a biological messenger molecule with unique characteristics has opened a new field in pineal research. This free radical gas is synthesized by the enzyme nitric oxide synthase (NOS) from L-arginine. The activation of adrenoreceptors in the membrane of the pinealocytes mediates the increase in NO through a mechanism that involves G proteins. In the pinealocyte, NO stimulates guanylyl cyclase resulting in an increased intracellular content of cGMP. The role of cGMP in pineal metabolism, however, is still enigmatic Using enzyme histochemistry and immunohistochemistry, the presence of NOS has been confirmed in the pineal gland of some species. In the rat and especially in the sheep, NOS is located in nerve fibres innervating the gland. These nerve fibres also contain the neuropeptides vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) and peptide histidine isoleucine (PHI), and are probably of parasympathetic origin. In cell cultures and tissue sections NOS immunoreactivity has been shown to be present in pinealocytes of the rat and bovine but not in the sheep. Finally, NOS is also present in the endothelial cells of the blood vessels of the pineal gland. Accordingly, in the mammalian pineal gland, NO is synthesized in both presynaptic nerve fibers and pinealocytes, as well as in blood vessels. However, the anatomical location of NO synthesis varies considerably among species. NO released in the pineal gland, might influence both the pineal metabolism and the blood flow of the gland.
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    Progress on three-dimensional visualizing skin architecture with multiple immunofluorescence staining and tissue-clearing approaches
    (Universidad de Murcia, Departamento de Biologia Celular e Histiologia, 2025) Wang, Yuqing; Bai, Wanzhu; Wang, Xiaoyu
    The skin forms the external covering of the body and is its largest organ, comprising many different cell types. Although the diversity of these cells has been widely studied with various histological methods, our understanding of skin architecture is mainly established on thin tissue sections, which restricted the information available to two dimensions. The development of innovative techniques to induce optical transparency (“clearing”) in biological tissues has enabled researchers to visualize the three-dimensional reconstruction of intact organs and thick tissue sections at a cellular resolution. With the aid of tissue-clearing treatment, the labeled cutaneous nerve fibers and blood vessels can be followed for a longer distance on the thicker skin section or the whole mount skin under a fluorescence microscopy or a confocal microscopy. It is beneficial for demonstrating the morphological characteristics of nerve fibers and blood vessels themselves, as well as their spatial interconnection. In this review, we provide a brief summary of the literature on the use of tissue optical clearing methods and describe our experience of multiple fluorescent staining and tissue clearing approaches on thicker skin sections and whole-mount skin in our laboratory. Given the existing conventional methods, we expected to provide a more effective approach to comprehensively study skin architecture.
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    The effectiveness of edible bird's nest in lowering VEGF, CD31, and PDGFR-β levels in diabetic retinopathy in rats with type 1 diabetes
    (Universidad de Murcia, Departamento de Biologia Celular e Histiologia, 2025) Komolkriengkrai, Manaras; Matsathit, Udomlak; Khimmaktong, Wipapan
    Aims. Diabetic eye disease, known as diabetic retinopathy (DR), is one of the problems that can arise from having high blood sugar for an extended period. This study aimed to investigate the effect of the edible bird’s nest (EBN) on retinal angiogenesis in diabetic rats. Methods. The 50 rats were separated into five different groups, each containing 10 rats: control, diabetes (DM), bird's nest-fed diabetes (75 mg/kg Body weight; BW), (EBN 75), (150 mg/kg BW) (EBN 150), and glyburide (GR) for an eight-week study. H&E and Masson’s trichrome staining were utilized to investigate the retinal tissue and vascular changes. The immunofluorescence study was used to detect angiogenic protein expression. The vascular corrosion cast/SEM method was also used to evaluate capillary plexus formation within the retinal layer. Results. From histological studies, DM rats have thinning of the retinal layer. Remarkably, the retinal vessels displayed dilations resembling ruptured blood vessels. The expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) (30.51±2.62), cluster of differentiation 31 (CD31) (28.18±0.22), and platelet-derived growth factor receptor beta (PDGFR-β) (141.67±0.97) were increased. EBN 75 exhibited some small improvements in their blood vessels and eye tissue. At a dose of 150 mg/kg BW, EBN proved to be more effective. There was a significant decrease in VEGF and CD31 expression compared with the diabetic group (p<0.001 and p<0.01, respectively). Conclusions. These studies have demonstrated that EBN can lower the growth levels of VEGF, CD31, and PDGFR-β, which results in a decrease in angiogenesis and a recovery from a variety of diabetic retinopathy-related diseases