Salamah Alwahsh

Palestine Polytechnic University · College of Medicine and Health Sciences

Background: Anomalous origin of the left coronary artery from the pulmonary artery (ALCAPA) is a rare congenital cardiac anomaly. The majority of patients die within the first year of life if left untreated. However, a few patients can be asymptomatic and survive into adulthood due to well-developed collateral between the left coronary artery and t...

Transplantation of islets in Type 1 diabetes is limited by poor islet engraftment into the liver, with 2-3 donor pancreases required per recipient. We aimed to condition the liver to enhance islet engraftment to improve long-term graft function. Diabetic mice received a non-curative islet transplant (n=400 islets) via the hepatic portal vein (HPV)...

Mangafodipir was approved for use as an MRI contrast agent in the late 1990s for liver and pancreas imaging but it was removed from the European market for commercial reasons in 2012. Previously, preliminary work in mice and in diabetic patients showed that Mn²⁺ ions could be used as a contrast agent to monitor the function of insulin-producing β-c...

Liver disease is an escalating global health issue. While liver transplantation is an effective mode of therapy, patient mortality has increased due to the shortage of donor organs. Developing renewable sources of human liver tissue is therefore attractive. Pluripotent stem cell-derived liver tissue represents a potential alternative to cadaver der...

The prevalence of liver diseases is increasing globally. Orthotopic liver transplantation is widely used to treat liver disease upon organ failure. The complexity of this procedure and finite numbers of healthy organ donors have prompted research into alternative therapeutic options to treat liver disease. This includes the transplantation of liver...

Glucose is a major energy source for the entire body, while fructose metabolism occurs mainly in the liver. Fructose consumption has increased over the last decade globally and is suspected to contribute to the increased incidence of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). NAFLD is a manifestation of metabolic syndrome affecting about one-third...

Supplementary methods.

GFP positivity detected by immunocytochemistry in BMDMs generated from aEGFP double homozygous mice 48?h after SPION labeling. (A) Residual cell suspensions from transplantation were plated in four-well chamber slides and acclimatized in DMEM for 48?h in culture. Cells were fixed, permeabilized and blocked before incubation with anti-GFP antibodies...

(A) Particle size distributions and (B) zeta potentials of the commercial ferumoxide and ferumoxytol.

Particle size distributions of (A) SPIONs synthesized with different polymers using 4:1 polymer to iron salt ratio. (B) DEAE-Dex-coated SPION synthesis using different polymer to iron salt ratios. (C) Zeta potentials of SPIONs synthesized using different dextran polymers with 4:1 polymer to iron ratio. (D) DEAE-Dex-coated SPIONs synthesized using d...

FACS analysis of aEGFP BMDMs shows 98% GFP positivity compared with wild-type equivalents. Bone marrow was harvested from homozygous mice expressing activated EGFP. BMDMs were differentiated according to the standard 7-day protocol. Cell preparations were incubated with antibodies for CD45, CD11b and F4/80. A DAPI stain served as a live/dead discri...

MRI detection of SPION-labeled macrophages indicates hepatic localization. (A) Axial T2* maps of the upper abdomen were generated from eight echo times in mice before (baseline, day 0) and after (days 6, 13, 20 and 27) transplantation of 1???106 SPION-labeled BMDMs into the hepatic portal vein. False-color maps show representative T2* maps per time...

Background aims: Tracking cells during regenerative cytotherapy is crucial for monitoring their safety and efficacy. Macrophages are an emerging cell-based regenerative therapy for liver disease and can be readily labeled for medical imaging. A reliable, clinically applicable cell-tracking agent would be a powerful tool to study cell biodistributi...

The role of the liver and the endocrine pancreas in development of hyperinsulinemia in different types of obesity remains unclear. Sedentary rats (160 g) were fed a low-fat-diet (LFD, chow 13% kcal fat), high-fat-diet (HFD, 35% fat), or HFD+ 30% ethanol+ 30% fructose (HF-EFr, 22% fat). Overnight-fasted rats were culled after one, four or eight week...

The pathophysiologic mechanisms recognized as inducing changes in the cell cycle and its regulation that enables carcinogenesis to occur are presented. More importantly, the mechanisms thought to be most important in each metabolic disorder that can terminate in the development of a hepatic cancer are identified. Often, more than one mechanism is i...

The pandemic of obesity due to food “addiction” has led to a dramatic increase in rates of Type II Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM). T2DM is characterized by increased glucose and insulin (but not of the C-peptide) serum levels. Increase of insulin serum level without increase of insulin synthesis is supposed to be due to insulin resistance. Reduction of b...

Although both alcohol and fructose are particularly steatogenic, their long-term effect in the development of a metabolic syndrome has not been studied in vivo. Consumption of fructose generally leads to obesity, whereas ethanol can induce liver damage in the absence of overweight. Here, Sprague-Dawley rats were fed ad libitum for 28 days on five d...

Irradiation is known to induce inflammation and affect fat metabolic pathways. The current study investigates hepatic fat accumulation and fatty acid transportation in a rat model of single dose liver irradiation (25-Gy). Rat livers were selectively irradiated in-vivo (25-Gy), sham-irradiated rats served as controls. Hepatic lipids were studied by...

Acute rejection (AR) and acceptance of allograft after liver transplantation (LTx) remain critical issues that need addressing to improve prognosis. Therefore we performed rat orthotopic LTx and proteomic analyses to screen for immune response-related biomarkers in sera. Markers identified were validated at the mRNA and/or protein levels and the mo...

To explore lipocalin-2 (LCN-2) expression and its possible role and mechanism(s) of production in rat models of diet-inducible fatty liver. Fatty liver was triggered in male Sprague-Dawley rats fed either with liquid Lieber-DeCarli (LDC) or LDC + 70% cal fructose (L-HFr) diet for 4 or 8 wk. Chow-nourished animals served as controls. Hepatic express...

Melanocortin 4 receptor (MC4R) is predominantly recognized to mediate energy metabolism and anti-inflammation through the central nervous system. However, the expression of MC4R has recently been identified in rat liver and was shown to be upregulated during acute phase response. This study aims to investigate potential roles of MC4R in liver regen...

Decreased serum- and increased hepatic-iron-uptake is the hallmark of acute-phase-response (APR). Iron uptake is controlled by iron transport proteins like transferrin receptors (TfRs) and lipocalin-2 (LCN-2). The current study aimed to understand regulation of iron uptake in primary culture hepatocytes in the presence/absence of acute-phase-mediat...

FoxP3 expression is a marker for Tregs which are known to be involved in tumor immunity. We aimed to evaluate FoxP3 promoter demethylation in human colorectal cancer (CRC) and rat intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC). Bisulfite-treated genomic DNA templates of shock frozen paired samples were studied from 13 anonymous CRC patients and from 10 male...

Introduction: Fat accumulation in the liver is associated with metabolic syndrome; and through NASH, it could progress to hepatic cirrhosis and carcinoma. Since lipocalin-2 (LCN2) synthesis in the liver is influenced by inflammatory and metabolic processes, we aimed to examine LCN2 expression in two rat models of diet-induced fatty liver. Methods:...