STUDY OF THE CORRELATION BETWEEN TRACE-ELEMENTS, STEROLS AND FATTY-ACIDS IN BROWN-ALGAE FROM THE SARONIKOS GULF OF GREECE

In the whole plant of brown algae species Colpomenia sinuosa, Cystoseira compressa, Dictyopteris membranacea, Dictyota dichotoma, Dictyota linearis, Padina pavonica, Sargassum accinarium and Stypocaulon scoparium collected from Saronikos gulf of Greece, the trace elements antimony, cesium, chromium, cobalt, europium, iron, rubidium, scandium, strontium, thorium and zinc were determined by instrumental neutron activation analysis. In the same samples the sterols campesterol, cholesterol, fucosterol stigmasterol and the fatty acids linoleic, linolenic, myristic, oleic, palmitic, palmitoleic and stearic acid were determined by gas-liquid chromatography. Statistical analysis included the calculation of the correlation coefficient and multiple correlation was applied in all analytical data. The results showed that the sterol pattern of Padina pavonica is different from all the other examined species. A high fucosterol content should be accompanied by very low concentrations or absence of a number of other constituents. Linoleic and linolenic acids present a strong linear correlation between them. Stearic acid seems to play a role in the life process of brown algae due to its significant correlation with fucosterol and with strontium. The high content found for the latter must be an evidence for the selective accumulation of this element from brown algae as mentioned in literature. A multiple correlation was found between sterols, saturated fatty acids and other single constituents studied in this work

Implementation of X-ray fluorescence microscopy for investigation of elemental abnormalities in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

The abnormalities of metallochemical reactions may contribute to the pathogenesis of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). In the present work, an investigation of the elemental composition of the gray matter, nerve cells and white matter from spinal cord tissues representing three ALS cases and five non-ALS controls was performed. This was done with the use of the synchrotron microbeam X-ray fluorescence technique (micro-SRXRF). The following elements were detected in the tissue sections: P, S, Cl, K, Ca, Fe, Cu, Zn and Br. A higher accumulation of Cl, K, Ca, Zn and Br was observed in the nerve cell bodies than in the surrounding tissue. Contrary to all other elements, Zn accumulation was lower in the white matter areas than in the gray matter ones. The results of quantitative analysis showed that there were no general abnormalities in the elemental accumulation between the ALS and the control group. However, for individual ALS cases such abnormalities were observed for the nerve cells. We also demonstrated differences in the elemental accumulation between the analyzed ALS cases