Ethanol Stimulates Immunoreactive Endothelin-1 and -2 Release from Cultured Human Umbilical Vein Endothelial Cells

The present study employed enzyme-immunoassay to examine the effect of ethanol on endothelin-1 and/or -2(ET1 + 2) release from human umbilical vein endothelial cells. Thirty minutes of exposure to ethanol increased the release of immunoreactive ET1 + 2 from cultured endothelial cells in a dose-dependent manner. However, ethanol at concentrations of less than 400 mM did not induce any LDH release from the endothelial cells. Trypan blue exclusion test revealed that 400 mM solution of ethanol decreased the cell viability to 7.7%. Thus, ethanol was found to directly stimulate ET1 + 2 release from cultured human umbilical vein endothelial cells. This reaction of vascular endothelial cells against ethanol may be related to ethanol-induced cardiovascular diseases such as hypertension, myocardial infarction and stroke, as well as fatal alcohol syndrome.     

Effect of ethanol on endothelin-1 release from gastric vasculature

The effects of ethanol on gastric vasculature in isolated vascularly perfused rabbit stomach was investigated. The isolated stomach was perfused with Krebs-Henseleit solution containing 3% dextran bubbled with 95% O₂ and 5% CO₂ at a rate of 12 ml/min. After mixture and perfusion of 10 mM to 400 mM of ethanol, perfusion pressure and endothelin-1 concentration in effluent from gastric vasculature were measured. Perfusion pressure and endothelin-1 concentration in effluent increased in a dose-dependent manner with increasing ethanol concentrations. In conclusion, the data suggest that ethanol may stimulate the release of endothelin from gastric vasculature and may cause gastric ischemia due to vasoconstriction resulting in acute gastric mucosal injury.     

Structure and Properties of Poly(ethylene terephthalate) Fiber Webs Prepared via Laser-Electrospinning and Subsequent Annealing Processes

Melt-electrospinning is an eco-friendly method for producing ultra-fine fibers without using any solvent. We prepared webs of poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) through melt-electrospinning using CO₂ laser irradiation for heating. The PET webs comprised ultra-fine fibers of uniform diameter (average fiber diameter = 1.66 μm, coefficient of variation = 19%). The co-existence of fibers with high and low molecular orientation was confirmed through birefringence measurements. Although the level of high orientation corresponded to that of commercial highly oriented yarn, crystalline diffraction was not observed in the wide-angle X-ray diffraction (WAXD) analysis of the webs. The crystallinity of the webs was estimated using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The fibers with higher birefringence did not exhibit any cold crystallization peak. After annealing the web at 116 °C for 5 min, a further increase in the birefringence of the fibers with higher orientation was observed. The WAXD results revealed that the annealed webs showed crystalline diffraction peaks with the orientation of the c-axis along the fiber axis. In summary, the formation of fibers with a unique non-crystalline structure with extremely high orientation was confirmed.