University of Düsseldorf

About: University of Düsseldorf is a education organization based out in Düsseldorf, Germany. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Diabetes mellitus. The organization has 25225 authors who have published 49155 publications receiving 1946434 citations.

Functional and Biochemical Evaluation of Platelet Aspirin Resistance After Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery

Abstract: Background— Aspirin inhibits platelet activation and reduces atherothrombotic complications in patients at risk of myocardial infarction and stroke. However, a sufficient inhibition of platelet function by aspirin is not always achieved. The causes of this aspirin resistance are unknown. Methods and Results— Patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) have a high incidence of aspirin resistance. To evaluate functional and biochemical responses to aspirin, platelet-rich plasma was obtained before and at days 1, 5, and 10 after CABG. Thromboxane formation, aggregation, and α-granule secretion were effectively inhibited by 30 or 100 μmol/L aspirin in vitro before CABG, but this inhibition was prevented or attenuated after CABG. Whereas the inhibition of thromboxane formation and aggregation by aspirin in vitro partly recovered at day 10 after CABG, oral aspirin (100 mg/d) remained ineffective. The inducible isoform of cyclooxygenase in platelets, COX-2, has been suggested to confer aspirin res...

Arabidopsis SPA proteins regulate photoperiodic flowering and interact with the floral inducer CONSTANS to regulate its stability.

Abstract: The four-member SPA protein family of Arabidopsis acts in concert with the E3 ubiquitin ligase COP1 to suppress photomorphogenesis in dark-grown seedlings. Here, we demonstrate that SPA proteins are, moreover, essential for photoperiodic flowering. Mutations in SPA1 cause phyA-independent early flowering under short day (SD) but not long day (LD) conditions, and this phenotype is enhanced by additional loss of SPA3 and SPA4 function. These spa1 spa3 spa4 triple mutants flower at the same time in LD and SD, indicating that the SPA gene family is essential for the inhibition of flowering under non-inductive SD. Among the four SPA genes, SPA1 is necessary and sufficient for normal photoperiodic flowering. Early flowering of SD-grown spa mutant correlates with strongly increased FT transcript levels, whereas CO transcript levels are not altered. Epistasis analysis demonstrates that both early flowering and FT induction in spa1 mutants is fully dependent on CO . Consistent with this finding, SPA proteins interact physically with CO in vitro and in vivo, suggesting that SPA proteins regulate CO protein function. Domain mapping shows that the SPA1-CO interaction requires the CCT-domain of CO, but is independent of the B-box type Zn fingers of CO. We further show that spa1 spa3 spa4 mutants exhibit strongly increased CO protein levels, which are not caused by a change in CO gene expression. Taken together, our results suggest, that SPA proteins regulate photoperiodic flowering by controlling the stability of the floral inducer CO.

Frequency of SMBG correlates with HbA1c and acute complications in children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes

Abstract: The aim of this study was to correlate the frequency of self-monitoring of blood glucose (SMBG) to the quality of metabolic control as measured by hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), the frequency of hypoglycemia and ketoacidosis, and to see whether the associations between SMBG and these outcomes are influenced by the patient's age or treatment regime. We analyzed data from the DPV-Wiss-database of 26 723 children and adolescents aged 0-18 yr with type 1 diabetes recorded during 1995-2006. Variables evaluated were gender, age at visit, diabetes duration, therapy regime, insulin dose, body mass index-standard deviation scores (BMI-SDS), HbA1c, rate of hypoglycemia, and ketoacidosis. In the youngest age group of children under the age of 6 yr, the frequency of SMBG was the highest compared with that in children aged 6-12 yr or children aged > 12 yr: 6.0/d vs. 5.3/d vs. 4.4/d (p 12 yr, metabolic control (HbA1c) improved distinctively with two or more blood glucose measurements.