Main description:

During recent decades, bewildering progress has occurred in the field of Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry. Progress has been extraordinarily rapid primarily because of the challenge for finding solutions to a wide variety of diseases and the availability of new techniques for monitoring biochemical processes. This has resulted in a voluminous and complex literature in the field of biochemical medicine so that there is a clear need for the synthesis and analysis of the continuing expansion of valuable data. It was thus considered appropriate to initiate a new series of monographs, each dedicated to a specialized area of investigation, encompassing molecular and cellular processes in health and disease. Most of the biochemical scientists have devoted their energies in understanding the fundamentals of biochemistry and indeed impressive advances have been made in the past. However, the full potential for explanation has been hampered by the concept of universality of biochemical reactions occurring in the cell. In view of the fact that each organ in the body performs a distinct function, it is now beginning to be realized that each cell type is unique in its need to survive and perform its specific function. Accordingly, the aspect of individualty is receiving increased attention for revealing new avenues in the study of pathophysiology of cellular abnormalities.

Contents:

Myocardial fatty acid homeostasis.- The role of the endothelium in myocardial lipoprotein dynamics.- Effect of taxol on the heparin-induced secretion of lipoprotein lipase from cardiac myocytes.- Transmembrane transport of fatty acids in the heart.- Is fatty acid uptake in cardiomyocytes determined by physicochemical fatty acid partition between albumin and membranes?.- Intracellular transport of lipids.- Does fatty acid-binding protein play a role in fatty acid transport?.- Modeling of palmitate transport in the heart.- Fatty acids are not an important fuel for coronary microvascular endothelial cells.- Is there evidence of a role of the phosphoinositol-cycle in the myocardium?.- Alpha-1-adrenergic stimulation of phosphoinositide breakdown in cultured neonatal rat ventricular myocytes.- Role of phospholipases in myocardial ischemia: effect of cardioprotective agents on the phospholipases A of heart cytosol and sarcoplasmic reticulum in vitro.- Degradation of phospholipids and triacylglycerol, and accumulation of fatty acids in anoxic myocardial tissue, disrupted by freeze-thawing.- Dual effect of tannic acid on the preservation and ultrastructure of phosphatidyl choline vesicles.- Subcellular distribution, molecular dynamics and catabolism of plasmalogens in myocardium.- Phospholipase C-evoked glycerol release in energy depleted rat myocardial cells.- Significance of myocardial eicosanoid production.- Effect of glucocorticoids on arachidonic acid metabolism and prostaglandin secretion by cultures of newborn rat heart cells.- Hormones and triacylglycerol metabolism under normoxic and ischemic conditions.- Effects of hypoxia on lipolysis in isolated rat myocardial cells.- Alterations in fatty acid oxidation in ischemic and reperfused myocardium.- Fatty acid oxidation and myocardial phospholipase A2 activity.- Protective effect of propionyl-L-carnitine against ischaemia and reperfusion-damage.- L-Propionyl-carnitine protection of mitochondria in ischemic rat hearts.- Glucose oxidation is stimulated in reperfused ischemic hearts with the carnitine palmitoyltransferase 1 inhibitor, Etomoxir.- Fatty acid turnover in the ischaemic compared to the non-ischaemic human heart.- Biochemistry of radioiodinated free fatty acids.- Variables of myocardial backdiffusion, determined with 17-IODO-131 heptadecanoic acid in the normal dog heart.- Intramyocardial fate of 15-p-iodophenyl-p-methylpentadecanoic acid (IMPPA): Is it a good tracer of fatty acid myocardial uptake?.- Clinical appplications of assessments of myocardial substrate utilization with positron emission tomography.- Index to Volume 88.