Arrival time and magnitude of airborne fission products from the Fukushima, Japan, reactor incident as measured in Seattle, WA, USA

We report results of air monitoring started due to the recent natural catastrophe on 11 March 2011 in Japan and the severe ensuing damage to the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear reactor complex. On 17-18 March 2011, we registered the first arrival of the airborne fission products 131-I, 132-I, 132-Te, 134-Cs, and 137-Cs in Seattle, WA, USA, by identifying their characteristic gamma rays using a germanium detector. We measured the evolution of the activities over a period of 23 days at the end of which the activities had mostly fallen below our detection limit. The highest detected activity amounted to 4.4 +/- 1.3 mBq/m^3 of 131-I on 19-20 March.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, published in Journal of Environmental Radioactivit

Il messagio etico di M. Fanno

Esame critico sul pensiero economico di Marco Fanno, strettamente connesso ai principi etici dell'autore

Stato dell'immunit\ue0 della popolazione milanese verso il nuovo ceppo di tipo B, B/Hong Kong/8/73 e studio del potere immunizzante del vaccino di vecchia composizione. Immunity status of the Milanese population towards B-Hong Kong-8-73, the new B type strain and study of the immunizing activity of the old composition vaccine

In view of the possibility that the new B Hong Kong strains which have a completely new hemoagglutinin would spread during the epidemic season, a serological survey was carried out on 180 serum samples collected between November and December 1972 in Milan from people aged 4 to over 60 yr. Because of limited data indicating that the neuraminidase of the new strains is antigenically related to that of earlier B strains, both hemagglutination inhibiting antibodies (HIA) and antineuraminidase antibodies (ANab) against the B/Hong Kong/8/773 strain were titrated. To gain information on the possibility that, lacking adequate aliquots of the new vaccine, some degree of protection could be conferred also by current vaccine preparations, both types of antibody were titrated in sera of children given a polyvalent vaccine including the strain B/Roma/67. The results indicated that HIA are almost absent in the Italian population since it was found only at low titers (1:10 - 1:20) in 12% of the sera, while ANab were present in 28 out of 57 sera examined and their level was over 1:20 in 25%. Judging from the behavior of the HIA, the response to the vaccine including the B Roma/67 strain was very poor. None of the 32 children developed antibody at titer >1:20. On the contrary ANab were found in 22 of the children (out of 25 examined) after a single dose of vaccine and all but one had ANab at titer >1:20 after the second dose. It is concluded that a certain degree of protection against the new B viruses could be afforded also by current vaccines

Caratterizzazione antigenica dell'emoagglutinina e della neuraminidasi dei ceppi di virus influenzale di tipo B isolati in Italia nel 1962, 1967 e 1971.

The hemagglutinin and neuraminidase antigens of 3 influenza type B viruses isolated in Italy during the epidemics of 1962, 1967 and 1971 were characterized. As reference strains, the prototypes B/Lee/40, B/Bon/43, B/Johannesburg/58, B/Taiwan/62 and B/Hong Kong/8/73 were chosen. The data obtained with specific chicken antisera show that the hemagglutinins of the Italian strains have an immunological relation between themselves and with the hemagglutinating antigen of the B/Johannesburg and B/Taiwan viruses. Only in the case of B/Hong Kong/8/73 strain no cross reactivity with the earlier viruses was found. However the B/Hong Kong immune serum inhibited at low titer hemagglutinin of B/Taiwan virus. The neuraminidases of the Italian strains appear very similar and highly correlated with the enzymes of the B/Johannesburg and B/Taiwan viruses. Also the neuraminidase of B/Hong Kong is strictly related to that of previously prevalent viruses with the exception of the B/Lee and B/Bon. The behaviour of homologous and heterologous hemagglutination and neuraminidase inhibition antibody in the sera of patients (age over 10 years) involved in the three epidemics was studied. At the hemagglutination inhibition and neuraminidase inhibition tests the majority of the patient sera reacted also with the heterologous strains. It is concluded that the B influenza viruses belong to the same antigenic spectrum

Controllo clinico, studio dell'escrezione virale e valutazione della risposta in anticorpi circolanti e locali dopo somministrazione di vaccino influenzale vivente ed attenuato contenente il ceppo "Alice"

Thirty four young adults were inoculated intranasally by nose drops, with two doses, two weeks apart, of inhibitor resistant 'Alice' vaccine strain of A/England/42/72 (H3N2). By the rate of volunteers with clinical reactions, always mild and short lasting, the vaccine showed a low degree of reactogenicity. Viral shedding was evidenced only the day after the first dose and was limited to two vaccines. Two weeks after the first dose homologous serum h.i.a. appeared in all the 15 volunteers lacking prevaccination antibody and significant titer rises occurred in a substantial number of vaccine recipients with low titers. The incidence of subjects with h.i.a. at titers considered to be protective ( 651:40), which was 26% before vaccination, rose to 93% in fully vaccinated volunteers. Very likely because of the presence of n.i.a. in the prevaccinal serum of all the volunteers, the n.i.a. response was less satisfactory. The vaccine induced h.i.a. to A/Port Chalmers/73 e A/Scotland/74 (H3N2) variants, although in a lower number of subjects and at a lower titer than to the homologous strain. Serum h.i. and n.i. antibody response appeared not to be significantly increased by a second dose. H.i.a., never present in the first sample, were found in the nasal washings taken two weeks after the second dose from 9 out of 16 vaccinees examined. Antibody was detected more frequently in the specimens with relatively high levels of protein and IgA. Secretory n.i.a., already demonstrable in 7 volunteers before vaccination, were acquired by all but one at the end of the experience

The primary role of glutathione against nuclear DNA damage of striatum induced by permethrin in rats.

Pyrethroids are one of the most widely used class of insecticides and their toxicity is dominated by pharmacological actions upon the CNS. This study reports as the subchronic treatment (60 days) with permethrin (PERM) (1/10 of LD(50)) induced nuclear DNA damage in rat striatum cells. Comet assay outcomes showed that PERM produced single- and double-strand breaks in striatum cells, the DNA damage was not related to oxidation at pyrimidine and purine bases. Vitamin E (280 mg/kg body weight/day) and vitamin E+coenzyme Q(10) (10 mg/kg/3 ml) supplementation could protect PERM treated rats against nuclear DNA damage. With the aim to evaluate the cause of nuclear DNA damage observed in striatum of rat treated with PERM, in vitro studies on striatum submitochondrial particles (SMPs) and on striatum cells treated with 10 muM PERM alone or plus 16 or 32 nM GSH were performed. SMPs incubated with PERM showed a decrease in superoxide anion release from the electron transport chain by inhibition of mitochondrial complex I. The effect could be related to the decrease of membrane fluidity measured in the hydrophilic-hydrophobic region of the mitochondrial membrane. This result discarded the involvement of the mitochondrial reactive oxygen species in the nuclear DNA damage. On the contrary, GSH played a crucial role on striatum since it was able to protect the cells against nuclear DNA damage induced by PERM. In conclusion our outcomes suggested that nuclear DNA damage of striatum cells was directly related to GSH depletion due to PERM insecticide

Mitochondrial Complex I: structural and functional aspects

This review examines two aspects of the structure and function of mitochondrial Complex I (NADH Coenzyme Q oxidoreductase) that have become matter of recent debate. The supramolecular organization of Complex I and its structural relation with the remainder of the respiratory chain are uncertain. Although the random diffusion model [C.R. Hackenbrock, B. Chazotte, S.S. Gupte, The random collision model and a critical assessment of diffusion and collision in mitochondrial electron transport, J. Bioenerg. Biomembranes 18 (1986) 331-368] has been widely accepted, recent evidence suggests the presence of supramolecular aggregates. In particular, evidence for a Complex I-Complex III supercomplex stems from both structural and kinetic studies. Electron transfer in the supercomplex may occur by electron channelling through bound Coenzyme Q in equilibrium with the pool in the membrane lipids. The amount and nature of the lipids modify the aggregation state and there is evidence that lipid peroxidation induces supercomplex disaggregation. Another important aspect in Complex I is its capacity to reduce oxygen with formation of superoxide anion. The site of escape of the single electron is debated and either FMN, iron-sulphur clusters, and ubisemiquinone have been suggested. The finding in our laboratory that two classes of hydrophobic inhibitors have opposite effects on superoxide production favours an iron-sulphur cluster (presumably N2) is the direct oxygen reductant. The implications in human pathology of better knowledge on these aspects of Complex I structure and function are briefly discussed. \ua9 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Curcumin analogs as multi-target antioxidants: focus on mitochondria.

Many lines of evidence suggest that oxidative stress and mitochondria impairment have a central role in age-related neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer\u2019s disease (AD). In addition, the recent understanding that mitochondria are at the intersection of the life and death of a cell, particularly through the involvement of mitochondrial oxidative stress, has made mitochondria a promising target for drug discovery and therapeutic interventions. Thus, considering the oxidative stress as a crucial event on the degenerative cascade, we designed a series of compounds presenting a constrained curcumin-like moiety. Curcumin and its constrained analogs have currently received remarkable interest as they have a unique conjugated structure which shows a pleiotropic biological profile. Actually, beside the well-known direct antioxidant activity, curcumin displays a wide range of properties including anti-inflammatory and anti-amyloidogenic activities. Moreover, dietary antioxidants, like curcumin, have recently been demonstred in vitro to be neuroprotective through the activation of heme oxigenase 1 pathway, showing an additional indirect antioxidant behaviour. On the basis of the consideration that mitochondria are a major source of ROS and are particularly vulnerable to oxidative stress, it is convincible that antioxidants that alleviate mitochondrial dysfunction could be beneficial in AD. This prompted us to design mitochondria-targeted antioxidants by connecting curcumin analogs to different polyamine chains. Polyamines might deliver the corresponding conjugates into the cell with active polyamine transporters and, acting as lipophilic cations, drive the antioxidant moiety selectively into mitochondria in a membrane potential-dependent manner across the inner membrane. In order to validate if such compounds were preferentially taken up by mitochondria, a fluorescent probe was designed by combining the phenyl benzothiazole group with the polyamine residue