Lead and iron contents in parsley being cultivated in the area of Chrzanów geochemical anomaly

Selected research polygon is both a geochemical anomaly and suburban area (Krakow City & Upper Silesia agglomeration). The inhabitants here have detached houses with gardens of one or two acres size, where “home-made”, fresh, low-processed food could be produced. The anomaly is reflected in high values of heavy metals contents, especially cadmium, lead and zinc, in the soils of the region. This is the result of both natural and anthropogenic factors. The purpose of the paper was to evaluate lead and iron contents in roots and leaves of parsley being cultivated in Trzebinia Commune, which is located in the area. Considering , there is a positive geochemical anomaly, the lead contents in soil were low – the average value was 88.67 mg*kg-1 d.m. and only two contents – 218.98 and 119.35 exceeded 100 mg*kg-1d.m. From the other hand the lead contents in parsley roots were high, many times higher than the allowable values. The lead contents in parsley leaves were also high. Phytoaccumulation indices were low, only one had the average value, but at their minimal range (1.02 and 10.3 adequately for leaves and roots). Translocation index of lead was close to one. The iron contents in soils were not high and they fell within the scope of low and average ranges that occur in Polish soils. The iron contents in leaves were high, attractive from nutrition point of view

Applications of plasmapheresis in therapy and in blood components preparation

Plasmapheresis is a medical procedure consists of removal of the blood, separation of cells from plasma, and return of these cells to the body’s circulation by reinfusion. There are therapeutic and preparative plasmapheresis. During therapeutic plasmapheresis, together with the plasma, are removed utoantibodies, immune complexes, antigens, proteins, enzymes and clotting factors or cytokines from the circulation. Preparative plasmapheresis enables the production of the plasma preparations for therapeutic purposes. Plasmapheresis is a safe procedure that poses a little risk of complications, however it should be developed in accordance with all rules and guidelines.Plazmafereza (plasma exchange – PE) to zabieg, który polega na pobraniu określonej objętości krwi, szybkim jej rozdzieleniu na osocze i elementy komórkowe, które następnie zostają zwrócone drogą reinfuzji. Wyróżniamy plazmaferezę leczniczą i preparatywną. Podczas plazmaferezy leczniczej wraz z osoczem z krążenia usuwane są autoprzeciwciała, kompleksy immunologiczne, antygeny, białka, enzymy, czynniki krzepnięcia, ale także cytokiny. Natomiast plazmafereza preparatywna umożliwia produkcję preparatów osoczowych w celach terapeutycznych. Plazmafereza to bezpieczny zabieg, który stwarza niewielkie ryzyko powikłań, należy jednak przeprowadzać go zgodnie z opracowanymi zasadami i procedurami

Encapsulation of granulocyte colony-stimulating factor and granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor in liposomes prepared by thin film hydration and their transfer to mesenchymal stem cells and cord blood hematopoietic stem cells

International audienceIntroduction: Cytokines are important immune modulator factors controlling homeostasis of the body and are involved in tissue regeneration after wound healing. The encapsulation of cytokines in liposomes has many advantages potentially useful for their transfer to the cells. Liposomes protect cytokines from neutralization, improving their pharmacokinetics or biologic activity in vivo. They are targeted to specific cell types and may delay the release of cytokines, allowing their sustained paracrine delivery. Their physicochemical characteristics such as size, shape, charge, and stability are important parameters improving bio-distribution and prolonged pharmacokinetics of encapsulated cytokines. Material and methods: We developed an efficient protocol for the encapsulation of two types of cytokines, granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) and granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF), in liposomes that can be stored long term in the active state. Results: This method allows for the encapsulation of 12-13% of the total amount of cytokines and 50% of encapsulated cytokines are entrapped in liposomes of more than <= 600 nm in diameter. We show that in the studied cell lines the liposome-encapsulated cytokines do not affect cell morphology, proliferation or mortality. Conclusions: The G-CSF or GM-CSF can be delivered to the cells in working concentrations through the encapsulation in the liposomes. Before the clinical application, the efficiency of these liposomes should be confirmed by an in vivo study

Analytical sensitivity of a method is critical in detection of low-level BRCA1 constitutional epimutation

Abstract Recent reports based on a substantial number of cases, warrant need for population-based research to determine implications of constitutional methylation of tumor suppressor genes such as BRCA1 occurring in healthy tissue in the prediction of cancer. However, the detection of the constitutional methylation in DNA extracted from blood has already been shown to be technologically challenging, mainly because epimutations appear to be present in blood at a very low level. The analytical sensitivity required for low-level methylation detection can be provided by NGS, but this technique is still labor and cost-intensive. We assessed if PCR-based MS-HRM and BeadChip microarray technologies, which are standardized and cost-effective technologies for methylation changes screening, provide a sufficient level of analytical sensitivity for constitutional BRCA1 methylation detection in blood samples. The study included whole blood samples from 67 healthy women, 35 with previously confirmed and 32 with no detectable BRCA1 promoter methylation for which we performed both MS-HRM based BRCA1 gene methylation screening and genome wide methylation profiling with EPIC microarray. Our results shown, that low-level BRCA1 methylation can be effectively detected in DNA extracted from blood by PCR-based MS-HRM. At the same time, EPIC microarray does not provide conclusive results to unambiguously determine the presence of BRCA1 constitutional methylation in MS-HRM epimutation positive samples. The analytical sensitivity of MS-HRM is sufficient to detect low level BRCA1 constitutional epimutation in DNA extracted from blood and BeadChip technology-based microarrays appear not to provide that level of analytical sensitivity