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Pharmacological treatment in Alzheimer's disease (AD) accounts for 10–20% of direct costs, and fewer than 20% of AD patients are moderate responders to conventional drugs (donepezil, rivastigmine, galantamine, meman tine), with doubtful cost-effectiveness. Both AD pathogenesis ...

Asthma is a common disease characterized by airway inflammation and bronchorestriction. There are several common categories of medications for treating asthma; however, not all asthmatics have the same response to these medications, some of which are adverse responses that are pote ...

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a systemic inflammatory arthritis that leads to severe joint damage and is associated with high morbidity and mortality. Disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) are the mainstay of treatment in RA. DMARDs not only relieve the clinical signs and sym ...

It is anticipated that unraveling the human genome will have a direct impact on the management of specific diseases. Variations or mutations in genes involved in drug metabolism or disease pathophysiology in gastroenterology and hepatology are expected to have effect on response to the ...

Functional studies can be utilized to give importance/relevance to clinical associations. Once a clinical genetic or pharmacogenetic association is found, molecular studies can be utilized to explore the mechanism for the association. By employing cells in culture or transgenic m ...

Cancer pharmacogenetics is a burgeoning field. There are now many published associations between genotype and outcome or toxicity from chemotherapy treatment. Performing pharmacogenetics studies in cancer requires careful consideration of the sample type to be used (germli ...

The understanding of vaccine-induced immune responses in adults and infants is limited. Current vaccination schedules for infants are frequently debated. Especially, the relationship among the timing, the frequency of the dosing, and the generation of an immunological memory are d ...

The complete sequence of the human genome and subsequent intensive searches for polymorphic variations are providing the prerequisite markers necessary to facilitate elucidation of the genetic variability in drug responses. Improvements in the sensitivity and precision of D ...

An association study can be used to investigate how individuals with unique genetic variants respond to a drug treatment. In an association study, individuals may come from different ethnic groups or an admixed population. The heterogeneity of genetic backgrounds among individuals in ...

There is wide variability in the response of individuals to standard doses of drug therapy. This is an important problem in clinical practice, where it can lead to therapeutic failures or adverse drug events. Polymorphisms in genes coding for metabolizing enzymes and drug transporters can a ...

Genetic variation in G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) results in the disruption of GPCR function in a wide variety of human genetic diseases. In vitro strategies have been used to elucidate the molecular pathologies that underlie naturally occurring GPCR mutations. Various degre ...

Common G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) gene variants that encode receptor proteins with a distinct sequence may alter drug efficacy without always resulting in a disease phenotype. GPCR genetic loci harbor numerous variants, such as DNA insertions or deletions and single-nucleo ...

The spared nerve injury (SNI) model mimics human neuropathic pain related to peripheral nerve injury and is based upon an invasive but simple surgical procedure. Since its first description in 2000, it has displayed a remarkable development. It produces a robust, reliable and long-lasting n ...

Platelets respond to low levels of agonists such as collagen or thrombin with primary signals that, although small, are functionally significant because they are amplified by autocrine and paracrine pathways such as the secretion of ADP and ATP from the dense granules. An important mediat ...

Platelets play a dual role in the normal hemostatic process. Injury of a vessel wall causes exposure of structural elements such as collagen that will trap platelets circulating in the blood. This initiates two processes, which occur simultaneously, resulting in formation of a stable throm ...

The primary step in hemostasis after vascular injury is generally considered to be the adherence of circulating platelets to collagen exposed in the subendothelial connective tissues (1,2). Such platelet adhesion is essential to limit bleeding and maintain blood vessel integrity. T ...

The ability of platelets to recognize and adhere to sites of vascular damage in vivo is critical to their function in the cessation of bleeding. Upon damage to the vasculature, denudation of endothelial cells results in the exposure of extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins, the most thrombogen ...

Platelet adhesion and aggregation at sites of vessel-wall injury are critical for the arrest of bleeding and for the development of vaso-occlusive thrombi at sites of atherosclerotic-plaque rupture. These adhesive interactions are critically dependent on multiple receptors on t ...

Activated platelets expose P-selectin and thereby adhere to leukocytes of all main classes (1–4). If neutrophils or monocytes are also activated, then adhesion can be stabilized by binding of their β2-integrins to fibrinogen and possibly other ligands on the platelet surface (5–9). Exper ...

In recent years there has been considerable progress in the availability of tests to assess platelet function (1). The gold standard of platelet-function testing, “platelet aggregometry,” was invented in the 1960s and has provided a vital research and diagnostic tool. However, because of t ...