This is the twice-per-month electronic newsletter for basic, preclinical and translational research news related to the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Please forward freely. Direct comments or questions to Joanna Downer, PhD, in the Office of Corporate Communications (410-614-5105, jdowner1@jhmi.edu).
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IN THIS ISSUE:
RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS:
+ Marker of Heart Disease Is High in Low-Birthweight Babies
+ Nitric Oxide-Making Enzyme Plays Two Roles in Heart Muscle
+ Minocycline Might Fight HIV-Induced Neurological Problems
NEWS BRIEFS:
Epigenetics Symposium To Be Held May 31
AWARDS AND HONORS:
Devreotes Elected to National Academy of Sciences
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Do you have an interesting research finding about one month from publication or presentation? Send manuscripts to Joanna Downer at jdowner1@jhmi.edu or fax to 410-614-8951. Information about awards and honors received by laboratory personnel and others is welcomed also.
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RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS:
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4/19/05
Marker of Heart Disease Is High in Low-Birthweight Babies
Some low birth weight infants have large particles rich in apolipoprotein C-1, a blood protein that could put them at risk for heart disease later in life, according to a national study led by Johns Hopkins Children's Center researchers.
For the study, Peter Kwiterovich, Jr., MD, professor of pediatrics and director of the Lipid Clinic at Johns Hopkins, and colleagues analyzed the umbilical cord blood of 163 infants born at 28 or more weeks of gestational age at Johns Hopkins Hospital between Jan. 3 and Sept. 27, 2000. Nineteen percent of the babies were found to have enriched levels of apolipoprotein C-1 bound up in the high density lipoproteins (HDL) circulating in their blood. On average, these infants were born three weeks earlier and weighed 1.3 pounds less than those who had normal HDL levels of the suspect particles, the researchers report in the April 20 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
In adults, HDL enriched with apolipoprotein C-1 may be dysfunctional and cause the death of smooth muscle cells that normally are an important part of the protective cap on top of cholesterol plaque in the blood vessels in the heart, Kwiterovich says. If the cap is weakened, the plaque can rupture, causing a heart attack.
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2005/04_19c_05.html
JAMA 20 April 2005;293(15):1891-1899.
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/293/15/1891
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4/26/05
Nitric Oxide-Making Enzymes Play Two Roles in Heart Muscle
Enzymes that make nitric oxide (NO) protect the heart from damage, but they also promote heart failure through overgrowth and enlargement of the muscle tissue, Johns Hopkins researchers have discovered in experiments with mice.
The Hopkins study, described in the May 1 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, suggests that future therapies for heart failure might take advantage of chemical cofactors that control the enzymes' action.
The researchers studied simulated hypertrophy in mice that either had or lacked the gene for the most prominent of the NO-making enzymes, nitric-oxide synthase-3 (NOS3), which stops functioning normally when levels of its cofactor, tetrahydrobiopterin (BH4), decrease.
Results showed that BH4 levels drop in hypertrophied hearts, and that NOS3 uncouples, or splits apart, when that happens. As a result, less NO is produced, and the enzyme instead produces factors that contribute to oxidative stress in the heart, says David Kass, MD, a professor at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and its Heart Institute.
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2005/04_26_05.html
J Clin Invest 1 May 2005;115(5):1221-1231.
http://www.jci.org/cgi/content/full/115/5/1221
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4/28/05
Minocycline Might Fight HIV-Induced Neurological Problems
In experiments with animals, Johns Hopkins researchers have discovered that the antibiotic minocycline might help alleviate HIV's negative effects on the brain and central nervous system.
Five monkeys infected with simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) and treated with minocycline had less damage to brain cells, less brain inflammation, and less of the virus in the central nervous system than six infected monkeys that received no treatment, the researchers report in the April 27 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
"In people, antiretroviral treatments do a great job of controlling HIV in blood, but most of the drugs don't cross the blood-brain barrier very well," says Christine Zink, DVM, PhD, professor of comparative medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
In use for more than 30 years, minocycline was specifically designed to cross the blood-brain barrier and has been shown to protect brain cells in animal models of diseases such as multiple sclerosis. Testing it in their animal model of HIV infection was a natural because SIV triggers some of the same biological pathways of cell death and inflammation as these other diseases, says Sheila Barber, PhD, assistant professor of comparative medicine.
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2005/04_27b_05.html
JAMA 27 April 2005;293(16):2003-2011.
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/293/16/2003
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NEWS BRIEFS:
Epigenetics Symposium To Be Held May 31 -- An all-day symposium, "Completing the Book of Life: Epigenetics in Science and Medicine," is scheduled for May 31 in **Mountcastle Auditorium** to discuss the latest findings and applications of epigenetics in development, health and disease. Speakers will be symposium organizer Andrew Feinberg, Cynthia Wolberger, Stephen Baylin, and Victor Corces of Johns Hopkins; Rolf Ohlsson of Uppsala University, Sweden; Vicki Chandler of the University of Arizona; Steven Henikoff of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Gary Felsenfeld of the National Institutes of Health; Shiv Grewal and Carl Wu of the National Cancer Institute; Ali Shilatifard of the Saint Louis University Cancer Center and Saint Louis University School of Medicine; and Shelley Berger of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Overflow seating will be available in the West Lecture Hall in the Wood Basic Science Building. A schedule is online at:
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/mediaII/epigeneticsschedule.html
Devreotes Elected to National Academy of Sciences -- Peter Devreotes, PhD, director and professor of cell biology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine's Institute for Basic Biomedical Sciences, was elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences on May 3 at the organization's 142nd annual meeting, held in Washington, DC. Devreotes, whose research focuses on understanding how cells sense their surroundings and move in response to what they detect, joins 18 other Johns Hopkins faculty members currently in the Academy, an honorary society that advises the government on scientific matters.
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2005/05_03_05.html
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John Sales contributed to the Research Highlights for this issue.
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--JHMI--
