Urophyseal control of plasma ionic concentration in Oreochromis mossambicus (Pisces) exposed to osmotic stress

Freshwater-and seawater-adapted Oreochromis mossambicus were submitted to 5 different treatments (urophysectomy, sham operation, urophyseal extract injection, saline injection and control) and transferred to brackish water. In freshwater – adapted fish transfarred to brackish water, urophysectomy increases plasma Na+, K+, Ca+ and osmotic concentrations. In seawater-adapted fish transferred to brackish water, plasma Na+ and K+ concentration were lower in control than other treatment group. The utophysis seems to act only in the “fine tuning” of osmoregulatory processes. Adaptations to changes in the salinity of the medium probably are regulated mainly by prolactin and cortisol.Exemplares de Oreochromis mossambicus adaptados à água doce e à água salgada foram submetidos a 5 tratamentos diferentes (urofisectomia, operação testemunho, injeção de extrato urofisário, injeção de salina e controle) e transferidos para água salobra. os peixes adaptados à água doce transferidos para água salobra a urofisectomia aumenta as concentrações de Na+, K+, Ca++ e osmótica do plasma. Em peixes adaptados à água salgada transferidos para água salobra as concentrações plasmáticas de Na+ e K+ são mais baixas no grupo controle do que nos outros grupos experimentais. A urófise parece atuar apenas no "ajuste fino" dos processos osmorregulatórios. A adaptação às mudanças de salinidade do meio provavelmente são reguladas principalmente pela prolactina e pelo cortisol

Removal of S. Mansoni in patients with hepatosplenig schistosomiasis: An estimate of the Parasitological load by means of quantitative coproscopy

32 Patients with an average age of 18.9 years suffering from schistosomiasis mansoni in its compensated hepatosplenic from who never taken schistosomicidal drugs 'were studied. All the patients were submitted to splenectorrry and filtration of the portal blood for the removal of S. mansoni. A study was made of the relationship between the average number of eggs per gram of faeces obtained from the ana{ysis of 10 successive samples of each patient's faeces b¡r the Kato.,Ifutz method and the number of worms removed from the portal blood. The statistical procedure used revealed a significant relationship between the parameters studied, permitting the establishment of the respective regression equations designed to estimate the numbers of female worms, pairs of ,worms and total worms. From the results and the application of a technique for the constitution of extremé subgroups, the authors propose a classification of the intensity of infection; a) light parasitic load: average number of eggs per gram of faeces less than B0B, corresponding to an estimated parasitic load of less than 226 female worms; b) moderate parasitic load: average number of eggs per gram of faeces between B0B and 3968, corresponding to an estimated. parasitic load. of between 226 and.528 female worms; c) Íntense parasitic load: average number of eggs per gram of faeces greater than 3968, corresponding to an estimated parasitic load greater than 528 female worms. On the basis of the proposed. classification the Authors discuss the indication of specific treatment for schistosomiasis mansoni in patients with the hepatosplenic form of the disease

Molecular Electrostatic Potential and Chemometric Techniques as Tools to Design Bioactive Compounds

In this chapter, firstly, we briefly review aspects of the approximation of quantum chemistry, molecular electrostatic potential (MEP), and chemometrics techniques, which are accredited as important tools in the development of chemical science and are frequently used in the study and design of bioactive compounds. Ultimately, we use MEP and pattern recognition (PR) techniques as tools to design nitrofuran compounds with biological activity against Trypanosoma cruzi (T. cruzi). PR models (PCA, HCA, KNN, SDA, and SIMCA) were constructed and demonstrated that 23 nitrofurans can be classified into two classes or groups: more active and less active according to their degrees of activity against T. cruzi. Properties such as charge on the N atom of the nitro group (QN1); the difference between the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) energy and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) energy (GAP energy); molecular representation of structure based on electron diffraction code of signal 5, unweighted (Mor05u); and Moriguchi water–octanol partition coefficient (MlogP) are responsible for the classification into more active and less active studied nitrofurans. It is interesting to notice that these properties represent three distinct classes of interactions between the nitrofurans and the biological receptor: electronic (QN1 and GAP energy), steric (Mor05u), and hydrophobic (MlogP). The results of the application of PR models on the validation set evidenced two nitrofuran compounds (compounds 25 and 30) as more promising for synthesis and biological assays, which in the future can be used to validate our PR models