The latest results of the MINIATURE competition announced by the National Science Center (NCN) in Krakow have brought success to another scientist from the Jagiellonian Centre for Experimental Therapeutics (JCET) . PhD Grzegorz Kwiatkowski will carry out a project: “Non-invasive MRI assessment of microvascular nitric oxide synthase dysfunctionand permeability in the lung endothelium in a mouse model of a chronic heartfailure“.
- Budget: PLN 49,601
- Implementation period: 12 months
Endothelial dysfunction is a key characteristic of several cardiovascular diseases including diabetics, atherosclerosis and hypertension. In particular, global endothelial status holds a prognostic value in the development of heart failure. Several reports shown endothelial dysfunction developed over the course heart failure including impairment ofnitricoxide synthesis. Moreover, at the advanced stage of heart failure, the endothelial impairment was also observed in the lungs. There is, however, very little known on a relationship between lung microvascular endothelial status and heart failure progression. In particular, it is not known whether the lung endothelium exhibits adaptive or maladaptive mechanisms towards heart failure progression. The lung endothelium covers up to 30% of the total endothelial surface and as such is potentially an important treatment target.
Recent developments in the Magnetic Resonance Imaging offer novel, dedicated methods to study microcirculation but have not been yet applied to the lungs. We plan to employed state-of-the-art MRI protocols to characterize changes in the lung endothelium phenotype during the progression of heart failure in a mouse model of this disease.
