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J Poulton

Publications and source records attributed to J Poulton.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources
PubMed1994

Effects of magnesium supplementation in a porcine model of myocardial ischemia and reperfusion.

We tested the hypothesis that acute, intravenous (i.v.) magnesium (Mg2+) supplementation would protect against myocardial stunning in an in situ swine model of regional ischemia and reperfusion and that a concomitant inhibitory effect on platelet aggregation would be elicited. An open-chest model was used, with transient occlusion of the left anterior descending coronary artery (LAD) for 8 min. Regional contractile function was assessed by measuring wall thickening fraction with epicardial Doppler crystals. One control group (n = 6) and two treatment groups were studied: group I (n = 6) received 750 mg MgSO4 before occlusion; group II (n = 6) received 1 g MgSO4 after the occlusion. Both protocols produced significant hypermagnesemia. In group I, platelet aggregation was measured before and after Mg2+ treatment using platelet-rich plasma (PRP) and various agonists (ADP 5 and 10 mM and collagen 1 mg/ml). As compared with controls, both treatment groups experienced significantly less postischemic dysfunction, with systolic function returning more quickly to baseline. Furthermore, platelet aggregation was significantly decreased immediately after Mg2+ infusion. Inhibition of platelet aggregation induced by Mg2+ treatment occurs concomitantly with significant amelioration of postischemic myocardial dysfunction.

Animals↗
PubMed1994

Arterial diastolic pressure augmentation by intra-aortic balloon counterpulsation enhances the onset of coronary artery reperfusion by thrombolytic therapy.

BACKGROUND: The early establishment of infarct artery reperfusion by intravenous thrombolytic therapy has improved survival after acute myocardial infarction. Investigations of reperfusion have focused on the effects of specific thrombolytic agents, anticoagulation, and platelet inhibition. However, little attention has been given to the relation of arterial blood pressure to thrombolysis, a factor that probably affects thrombolytic agent delivery to the obstructing thrombus. METHODS AND RESULTS: The effect of arterial diastolic pressure augmentation by intra-aortic balloon counterpulsation (IABP) on reperfusion after intravenous thrombolytic therapy was studied in a canine model. A critical left anterior descending coronary artery stenosis was created by an occluder. Acute thrombosis immediately proximal to the occluder was formed by local injection of a blood and thrombin mixture into a segment of the artery that had intimal damage (groups 1 through 3). Continuous coronary blood flow velocity was measured by an epicardial Doppler probe. Group 1 (n = 7) served as control. Group 2 (n = 6) received an intravenous, front-loaded recombinant tissue-type plasminogen activator (rTPA) regimen (1.25 mg/kg total dose, 15% as bolus, 50% in the first 30 minutes, and 35% for the following 60 minutes). Group 3 (n = 6) received the same rTPA regimen with IABP beginning at the start of rTPA administration. Coronary blood flow velocity, arterial pressure, and heart rate were observed for 150 minutes after the start of thrombolytic therapy. Five animals did not undergo coronary thrombosis (group 4) and had coronary blood flow velocity determined before and after IABP at baseline and after creation of critical stenosis. Mean systolic arterial blood pressure and heart rate were not statistically different between groups. Peak augmented diastolic pressure by IABP was 97.9 +/- 1.3% of systolic pressure in group 3 dogs. Spontaneous reperfusion did not occur in any group 1 dogs. All animals treated with rTPA reperfused. Reperfusion occurred in group 3 (13.1 +/- 2.1 minutes) earlier than in group 2 (39.2 +/- 9.4 minutes, P = .02). Overall duration of arterial patency did not differ between group 2 (81.4 +/- 16.6 minutes) and group 3 (94.9 +/- 15.3 minutes, P = .52). Reocclusions occurred with similar frequency (P = .85) in groups 2 and 3. In group 4, IABP did not increase baseline coronary blood flow velocity. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates that augmentation of diastolic arterial pressure by IABP enhances thrombolysis, leading to faster reperfusion. This effect appears to be unrelated to an increase in coronary blood flow and may be due to an effect of the augmented diastolic blood pressure wave on the obstructing thrombus. These findings suggest that the time to reperfusion by rTPA may be blood pressure dependent. The relation of arterial blood pressure to successful thrombolysis may have important implications for future treatment strategies for myocardial infarction.

Animals↗
PubMed1993

Abnormal RNA processing associated with a novel tRNA mutation in mitochondrial DNA. A potential disease mechanism.

A patient with a mitochondrial myopathy and biochemically proven profound complex I deficiency has a new mutation in mtDNA. This A-to-G transition at position 3302, involving the aminoacyl stem of tRNA(Leu(UUR)), is associated with abnormal mitochondrial RNA processing. Northern analysis demonstrates marked accumulation of a polycistronic RNA precursor containing sequence for 16 S rRNA, tRNA(Leu(UUR)), and ND1. Comparison of skeletal muscle and skin fibroblasts suggests that the processing error may be quantitatively less severe in this tissue, and biochemical analysis shows that fibroblasts do not express a biochemical defect despite containing the mutation. Important qualitative differences in the processing of this RNA precursor were found when comparing muscle and skin fibroblasts. In muscle, processing appears to occur first at the 5'-end of the tRNA, generating 16 S rRNA plus a tRNA + ND1 intermediate. In fibroblasts, processing occurs at the 3'-end of the tRNA, generating a 16 S rRNA + tRNA intermediate. We suggest that the mutation at position 3302 induces abnormal mitochondrial RNA processing that is linked to the biochemical defect (profound loss of complex I activity), either by qualitative or quantitative abnormalities in the ND1 message. The restriction to skeletal muscle of both the processing error and the biochemical defect suggests that the observed tissue differences in RNA processing play a protective role in skin fibroblasts.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Families of mtDNA re-arrangements can be detected in patients with mtDNA deletions: duplications may be a transient intermediate form.

In three patients with mitochondrial DNA duplications, there are two additional re-arranged molecules derived from mitochondrial DNA. Two forms of closed circular deletions of mitochondrial DNA have been characterised in all three patients, one being a monomer, and the other a dimer. The junction fragments appear to be the same in the deletion and the duplication, suggesting that both re-arrangements arose from the same initial recombination event, followed by homologous recombination. Sequential muscle biopsy and cell culture studies suggest that the duplication is present only transiently in muscle and cloned fibroblast lines. The duplicated molecule could thus be an intermediate in the formation of the deletion. Evidence is presented for the presence of duplicated mtDNA in 6/11 patients known to have deletions of mitochondrial DNA in muscle, suggesting that this could be a general mechanism for major re-arrangements of mitochondrial DNA. There may be parallels between the families of re-arrangements found in plant mitochondrial DNA, and the three distinct re-arranged molecules described here.

Blotting, Southern↗
PubMed1993

A new point mutation associated with mitochondrial encephalomyopathy.

Point mutations in the mitochondrial gene tRNA leucine(UUR) have been associated with maternally inherited mitochondrial myopathies including the MELAS syndrome (Mitochondrial Myopathy Encephalopathy Lactic acidosis and Stroke-like episodes). We describe a further mutation in tRNA leucine(UUR) in a patient with mitochondrial encephalomyopathy, pigmentary retinopathy, dementia, hypoparathyroidism and diabetes mellitus. The mutation was heteroplasmic in the proband's blood (30%) and muscle (76%); it was present at high levels in the proband's affected mother (50% in muscle), and at low levels (< 10%) in blood, muscle and fibroblasts of an unaffected sister. The mutation was not found in 121 normal controls or 35 other patients with mitochondrial disorders. The mutation is at a highly conserved position in the tRNA molecule, close to the 3,243 mutation which is associated with more than 80% of MELAS cases. Further more, both mutations lie within a possible transcriptional control region. This finding adds further support to the evidence that mutations in this region and in other mitochondrial tRNA genes may cause disease.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Mitochondrial DNA and genetic disease.

Since the human mitochondrial genome was characterised and sequenced in 1981, it has been viewed as the likely site of genetic diseases showing a maternal inheritance pattern and associated with defects of the respiratory chain, such as the mitochondrial myopathies (MMs). The properties that make it a candidate for the source of such conditions are that it encodes polypeptides involved in electron transport and that it is maternally inherited. However, several of the mtDNA diseases only fulfill one or other of these criteria: the first group of mtDNA diseases showed only sporadic deletions, and the first point mutation in Leber's Hereditary Optic Neuropathy (LHON) is not associated with a clear biochemical defect. Furthermore, it is now clear that both autosomal dominant and probably recessive nuclear genes can cause abnormalities of mtDNA. Each of these major groups will be considered in turn.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Duplications of mitochondrial DNA: implications for pathogenesis.

This paper describes the mapping data obtained on two patients in whom there was clear evidence for a rearrangement of mitochondrial DNA, using restriction enzyme analysis of DNA from whole blood and of polymerase chain reaction products. This suggested that a direct tandem duplication was present, and this was confirmed by sequence analysis of the junction fragment between duplicated segments. In each case the gene for cytochrome oxidase subunit I (MTCOX1) was interrupted, creating reading frames which, if transcribed and translated, would result in truncated versions of this peptide. Heteroplasmy and mosaicism for the abnormal mtDNA population were apparent. Preliminary data also suggest that high-molecular-weight rearrangements of the duplicated region are present in all tissues. The hypothesis that these duplicated genomes caused the phenotype was investigated by examining the distribution of duplicated genomes in various tissues using Southern hybridization and by RNA analysis. This included Northern blotting and cDNA sequencing. In order to investigate the origins of the duplicated mtDNAs, their distribution in different cells within a tissue was documented using the polymerase chain reaction.

Child↗
PubMed1991

Detection of mitochondrial DNA deletions in blood using the polymerase chain reaction: non-invasive diagnosis of mitochondrial myopathy.

Southern hybridisation demonstrates deleted mitochondrial DNAs (mtDNAs) in muscle but not in blood in a subgroup of patients with mitochondrial myopathy. The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to search for low levels of rearranged mitochondrial DNAs in blood in 24 patients with mitochondrial myopathy, and 15 asymptomatic relatives, all of whom have no detectable abnormality on restriction enzyme analysis of blood mitochondrial DNA. In eight patients and two of their relatives, PCR products were obtained consistent with deletions of mitochondrial DNA. The presence or absence of a deletion was correctly predicted in 10 out of 11 patients from whom information was available from muscle DNA. No false positives were obtained in 43 controls. PCR analysis of blood may be applicable as a non-invasive screening test of affected individuals and in carrier detection.

Blotting, Southern↗
PubMed1991

Analysis of mitochondrial DNA in Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy.

Twenty-eight patients from 25 maternal lineages with Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON) were investigated by restriction enzyme analysis for the presence or absence of the point mutation described by Wallace et al. The mutation was identified in 18 of 25 (72%) families with LHON. This provides further evidence that this mutation is present in the majority of patients with LHON. In 19 of these families with LHON, additional analysis using sequencing, oligonucleotide probing, and competitive oligonucleotide priming of PCR products was performed. In 14 cases with the site loss the point mutation was present, and five without the site loss had the wild type sequence in this region.

DNA, Mitochondrial↗
PubMed1991

Leber hereditary optic neuropathy: identification of the same mitochondrial ND1 mutation in six pedigrees.

Biochemical and molecular genetic evidence is presented that in six independent pedigrees the development of Leber hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON) is due to the same primary mutation in the mitochondrial ND1 gene. A LHON family from the Newcastle area of Great Britain was analyzed in depth to determine the mitochondrial genetic etiology of their disease. Biochemical assays of mitochondrial electron transport in organelles isolated from the platelet/white-blood-cell fraction have established that the members of this family have a substantial and specific lowering of flux through complex I (NADH-ubiquinone oxidoreductase). To determine the site of the primary mitochondrial gene mutation in this pedigree, all seven mitochondrial complex I genes were sequenced, in their entirety, from two family members. The primary mutation was identified as a homoplasmic transition at nucleotide 3460, which results in the substitution of threonine for alanine at position 52 of the ND1 protein. This residue occurs within a very highly conserved hydrophilic loop, is invariantly alanine or glycine in all ND1 proteins, and is adjacent to an invariant aspartic acid residue. This is only the second instance in which both a biochemical abnormality and a mitochondrial gene mutation have been identified in an LHON pedigree. The sequence analysis of the ND81 gene was extended to a further 11, unrelated LHON pedigrees that had been screened previously and found not to carry the mitochondrial ND4/R340H mutation. The ND1/A52T mutation at nucleotide 3460 was found in five of these 11 pedigrees. In contrast, this sequence change was not found in any of the 47 non-LHON controls. The possible role of secondary complex I mutations in the etiology of LHON is also addressed in these studies.

Amino Acid Sequence↗
PubMed1991

Germ-line deletions of mtDNA in mitochondrial myopathy.

mtDNA encodes subunits of the electron transport chain and is exclusively maternally inherited in mammals. It has been suggested that mtDNA might be the site of some of the mutations causing a group of human disorders called the "mitochondrial myopathies," because these may both be (1) accompanied by defects in the electron transport chain and (2) display a maternal pattern of inheritance. However, all of the deletions and duplications of mtDNA which occur in these patients have been sporadic, apart from families in whom affected members all carry different deletions suggesting a mutant autosomal dominantly inherited nuclear gene with de novo deletions in each individual. We present the first evidence for the presence of deleted mtDNAs in the germ line in these disorders. The patient carries a higher level of deleted mtDNAs than do his relatives, corresponding to severity of symptoms and consistent with a predicted dosage effect. "Selfishness" of deleted mtDNAs is probably one of the factors over and above random segregation of a small number of "founder" mtDNAs (the bottleneck hypothesis) which may be invoked to explain the usual distribution of mtDNAs in different tissues of patients with mtDNA deletions.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1990

Batten disease (Spielmeyer-Vogt disease, juvenile onset neuronal ceroid-lipofuscinosis) gene (CLN3) maps to human chromosome 16.

The ceroid-lipofuscinoses are a group of inherited neurodegenerative disorders characterized by the accumulation of autofluorescent lipopigment in neurons and other cell types. The underlying biochemical defect is unknown. Batten disease (Spielmeyer-Vogt disease, juvenile onset neuronal ceroid-lipofuscinosis) displays autosomal recessive inheritance. Genetic linkage studies were undertaken to determine the chromosomal location of the Batten disease mutation (CLN3). Following identification of linkage to the haptoglobin locus, linkage analysis has been carried out in 42 families by using DNA markers for loci on the long arm of human chromosome 16. The maximal lod score between Batten disease and the locus D16S148 calculated for combined sexes is 6.05 at a recombination fraction theta = 0.00. Multilocus analysis using five loci indicated the most likely order to be HP-D16S151-D16S150-CLN3-D16S148-D16S147. The maximal location score for CLN3 was 48 (equivalent to a lod score of 10.4) in that interval within this fixed marker map.

Chromosome Mapping↗
PubMed1990

Impaired mitochondrial beta-oxidation in a patient with an abnormality of the respiratory chain. Studies in skeletal muscle mitochondria.

Defects of complex I of the mitochondrial respiratory chain are important causes of neurological disease. We report studies that demonstrate a severe deficiency of complex I activity with less severe abnormalities of complexes III and IV (less than 5, 63, and 30% of control values, respectively) in a skeletal muscle mitochondrial fraction from a 22-yr-old female with weakness, lactic acidemia, and the deposition of intramuscular neutral lipid. The observation that lipid accumulates in this and other patients with complex I deficiency suggests impaired mitochondrial fatty acid oxidation. To investigate this mechanism we have shown impaired flux through beta-oxidation [( U-14C]hexadecanoate oxidation was 66% of control rate) and accumulation of specific acyl-CoA ester intermediates. The changes in fatty acid metabolism in complex I deficiency are secondary to the reduced state within the mitochondrial matrix with low NAD+/NADH ratios.

Adult↗