The Effect of Atrophic Rhinitis (AR) on the Weight-gain of Swine

Atrophic rhinitis (AR) is an infectious disease of swine. Besides the most characteristic clinical symptom, nasal turbinate atrophy, it is presumed to result retarded growth rate as well. The present paper gives a brief overview of the scientific literature concerning the correlation between AR and weightgain. Pointing out some of the possible reasons of contradictory results on the topic is also attempted

Forecasting the Spread of the COVID-19 Pandemic Based on the Communication of Coronavirus Sceptics

The COVID-19 pandemic has left a mark on nearly all events since the start of the year 2020. There are many studies that examine the medical, economic, and social effects of the pandemic; however, only a few are concerned with how the reactions of society affect the spread of the virus. The goal of our study is to explore and analyze the connection between the communication of pandemic sceptics and the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and its caused damages. We aim to investigate the causal relationship between communication about COVID-19 on social media, anti-mask events, and epidemiological indicators in three countries: the USA, Spain, and Hungar

Carbon nanotubes quench singlet oxygen generated by photosynthetic reaction centers

Photosensitizers may convert molecular oxygen into reactive oxygen species (ROS) including, e.g., singlet oxygen (1O2), superoxide anion (O2-•), and hydroxyl radicals (•OH), chemicals with extremely high cyto- and potential genotoxicity. Photodynamic ROS reactions are determinative in medical photodynamic therapy (cancer treatment with externally added photosensitizers) and in reactions damaging the photosynthetic apparatus of plants (via internal pigments). The primary events of photosynthesis take place in the chlorophyll containing reaction center protein complex (RC), where the energy of light is converted into chemical potential. 1O2 is formed by both bacterial bacteriochlorophylls and plant RC triplet chlorophylls in high light and if the quenching of 1O2 is impaired. In plant physiology, reducing the formation of the ROS and thus lessening photooxidative membrane damage (including the RC protein) and increasing the efficiency of the photochemical energy conversion is of special interest. Carbon nanotubes, in artificial systems, are also known to react with singlet oxygen. To investigate the possibility of 1O2 quenching by carbon nanotubes in a biological system, we studied the effect of carbon nanotubes on 1O2 photogenerated by photosynthetic RCs purified from purple bacteria. 1,3-Diphenylisobenzofuran (DPBF), a dye responding to oxidation by 1O2 with absorption decrease at 420nm was used to measure 1O2 concentrations. 1O2 was produced either from a photosensitizer (methylene blue) or from triplet photosynthetic RCs and the antioxidant capacity of carbon nanotubes was assessed. Less 1O2 was detected by DPBF in the presence of carbon nanotubes, suggesting that these are potential quenchers of this ROS. © 2013 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

Az amin oxidázok és a NADPH-oxidáz szerepe az ér- és neuronkárosodások kialakulásában (patomechanizmus és gyógyszeres befolyásolás) = Amine-oxidases and NADPH-oxidase-studies on their contribution to vascular and neuronal damages (pathomechanism and drug targets)

A selegilinnek és N-proragyl származékainak (dezmetil-deprenyl, deprenyl-N-oxid) neuroprotektív hatását tanulmányoztuk A-2058 melanóma sejtkultúrán. A sejtkárosodást BSO toxinnal váltottuk ki, mely gátolja a glutation szintézisét, valamint csökkenti az élősejtek számát és a sejt mitózist, miközben növeli az apoptotikus indexet. A selegiline és metabolitjai csökkentik a sejt veszteséget és az apoptotikus indexet. A leghatásosabb antiapoptotikus hatású vegyületnek a dezmetil-deprenyl bizonyult, míg a deprenyl-N-oxid kontroll szinten stabilizálta az élősejtek arányát, növelve a mitotikus indexet a kontrollhoz viszonyítva. A deprenyl-N-oxid ígéretes neuroprotektív vegyületnek tűnik. A selegiline ’first pass’ metabolizmusa jelentős. Jó hatásfokú, tolerálható parenterális út kimunkálása növelhetné a vegyület antidepresszív hatását „sajtreakció” nélkül. A selegiline növelte a magas zsírtartalmú tápon tartott patkányok teljes scavanger kapacitását és kivédte a máj elzsírosodását. Az SSAO enzim exogén szubsztrátja a benzilamin, gátolja az inzulinrezisztencia kialakulását és a glukóz-toleranciát. Az elhízásos és diabéteszes rágcsálómodelleken kapott eredményeink megerősítették az SSAO enzim szubsztrátjának, az orálisan adagolt benzilaminnak a kedvező hatását a szénhidrát- és zsíranyagcserére. A kezelés nem rontotta, inkább javította a nitrogén-monoxid hasznosíthatóságát az aortában. | The neuroprotective effect of selegiline and its N-propargyl derivatives (desmethyl-deprenyl, deprenyl-N-oxide) has been investigated on A-2058 melanoma cell culture. Cell damage was induced by BSO toxicity. BSO inhibits glutation synthesis, decreases viable cell number and mitotic rate, while increased the apoptotic index. Selegiline with its metabolites decreased cell loss and the apoptotic ratio. Desmethyl-deprenyl was the most effective compound decreasing apoptotic activity, while deprenyl-N-oxide stabilized cell number on control level and increased the ratio of mitotic cells above the serum deprived control. Desmethyl-deprenyl supposed to be promising neuroprotective agent. Selegiline has a high rate of ‘first pass’ metabolism. An efficient route of parenteral administration could establish antidepressive activity, without “cheese reaction”. Selegiline treatment of rats kept on high fat diet increased total scavenger capacity and decreased fat content of rat liver. Our results have confirmed the insulinomimetic effect of oral treatment with benzylamine, exogenous substrate of SSAO, using various rodent models of diabetes and obesity. The treatment also improved the bioavailability of nitric oxide in the aorta. Based on these results, further studies on the effect of SSAO substrate amines on carbohydrate and lipid metabolism is reasonable, especially as insulin resistance, obesity and their vascular complications are major health problems

Rate-limiting steps in the dark-to-light transition of Photosystem II - revealed by chlorophyll-a fluorescence induction

Photosystem II (PSII) catalyses the photoinduced oxygen evolution and, by producing reducing equivalents drives, in concert with PSI, the conversion of carbon dioxide to sugars. Our knowledge about the architecture of the reaction centre (RC) complex and the mechanisms of charge separation and stabilisation is well advanced. However, our understanding of the processes associated with the functioning of RC is incomplete: the photochemical activity of PSII is routinely monitored by chlorophyll-a fluorescence induction but the presently available data are not free of controversy. In this work, we examined the nature of gradual fluorescence rise of PSII elicited by trains of single-turnover saturating flashes (STSFs) in the presence of a PSII inhibitor, permitting only one stable charge separation. We show that a substantial part of the fluorescence rise originates from light-induced processes that occur after the stabilisation of charge separation, induced by the first STSF; the temperature-dependent relaxation characteristics suggest the involvement of conformational changes in the additional rise. In experiments using double flashes with variable waiting times (tau) between them, we found that no rise could be induced with zero or short tau, the value of which depended on the temperature - revealing a previously unknown rate-limiting step in PSII

Real-Time Sensing of Hydrogen Peroxide by ITO/MWCNT/Horseradish Peroxidase Enzyme Electrode

The accurate and sensitive determination of H2O2 is very important in many cases because it is a product of reactions catalysed by several oxidase enzymes in living cells and it is essential in environmental and pharmaceutical analyses. The fabrication of enzyme protein activity based biosensors is a very promising way for this purpose because the function of biological molecules is very specific, sensitive, and selective. Horseradish peroxidase (HRP) is the most commonly used enzyme for H2O2 detection because it can oxidize hydrogen atoms and, for example, xenobiotics in the presence of H2O2. In order to define the limit of detection (LOD) of H2O2 we made calibrations with guaiacol and amplex red (AR), which are hydrogen donors of HRP. The accumulation of the reaction products, tetraguaiacol, and resorufin, respectively, then can be easily detected by absorption or emission (fluorescence) spectroscopy. In our experiments an enzyme electrode was fabricated from ITO (indium tin oxide), functionalized multiwalled carbon nanotubes (f-MWCNTs), and HRP. Although the enzyme activity was smaller by about two orders of magnitude when the enzyme was bound to the f-MWCNTs (ca. 10−2 M H2O2/(M HRP·sec) compared to ca. 2 M H2O2/(M HRP·sec) and 5 M H2O2/(M HRP·sec) with AR and guaiacol in buffer solution), LOD of the H2O2 decomposition was about 6 pM H2O2/sec and 10 pM H2O2/sec in the case of AR and guaiacol, respectively