The crucial involvement of retinoid X receptors in DDE neurotoxicity

Dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene (DDE) is a primary environmental and metabolic degradation product of the pesticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT). It is one of the most toxic compounds belonging to organochlorines. DDE has never been commercially produced; however, the parent pesticide DDT is still used in some developing countries for disease-vector control of malaria. DDT and DDE remain in the environment because these chemicals are resistant to degradation and bioaccumulate in the food chain. Little is known, however, about DDE toxicity during the early stages of neural development. The results of the present study demonstrate that DDE induced a caspase-3-dependent apoptosis and caused the global DNA hypomethylation in mouse embryonic neuronal cells. This study also provided evidence for DDE-isomer-non-specific alterations of retinoid X receptor α (RXRα)- and retinoid X receptor β (RXRβ)-mediated intracellular signaling, including changes in the levels of the receptor mRNAs and changes in the protein levels of the receptors. DDE-induced stimulation of RXRα and RXRβ was verified using selective antagonist and specific siRNAs. Co-localization of RXRα and RXRβ was demonstrated using confocal microscopy. The apoptotic action of DDE was supported at the cellular level through Hoechst 33342 and calcein AM staining experiments. In conclusion, the results of the present study demonstrated that the stimulation of RXRα- and RXRβ-mediated intracellular signaling plays an important role in the propagation of DDE-induced apoptosis during early stages of neural development

Linear resolutions of powers and products

The goal of this paper is to present examples of families of homogeneous ideals in the polynomial ring over a field that satisfy the following condition: every product of ideals of the family has a linear free resolution. As we will see, this condition is strongly correlated to good primary decompositions of the products and good homological and arithmetical properties of the associated multi-Rees algebras. The following families will be discussed in detail: polymatroidal ideals, ideals generated by linear forms and Borel fixed ideals of maximal minors. The main tools are Gr\"obner bases and Sagbi deformation

Lipase - characterization, applications and methods of immobilization

W pracy przedstawiono charakterystykę enzymu lipazy ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem jego otrzymywania, właściwości katalitycznych, które decydują o szerokich możliwościach zastosowania oraz metod jego immobilizacji.In this paper the characterization of the lipase enzyme was presented, with special consideration to its production and catalytic properties which decide about the wide-ranging applications, as well as about the methods of its immobilization

Kapsułkowanie w przemyśle spożywczym

W artykule poruszono problemy dotyczące kapsułkowania produktów spożywczych ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem substancji dostarczających wrażeń smakowych i zapachowych, suplementów diety oraz probiotyków. Przedstawiono najczęściej stosowane techniki kapsułkowania i odpowiednie dla poszczególnych produktów spożywczych materiały powłokowe. Zwrócono także uwagę na zalety wynikające ze stosowania tej technologii do ochrony i kontrolowanego uwalniania aktywnych składników pożywienia