A General Report of the Geological and Palaeontological Survey in Maragheh Area, North-West Iran, 1973

The present article is a general report on the excavation of the bone beds in Maragheh area, N. W. Iran. The excavation has been done at four sites in Dareh-e Gorg, near Mordagh, in autumn of 1973. Many fossil bones were sampled and those dispositions were recorded. The fossil materials excavated in this time were listed, including many cranial and postcranial bones of Hipparion, Antelope, and other Bovidae, Carnivores, Choerolophodon, etc. The fossil bone was obtained from the sediments of 130 m thick in Mordagh area, consisting mainly of the alternations of tuffaceous sandstone and mudstone. Those are assignable to the lower part of the Maragheh Formation. The six tephra were recognized as the distinct marker beds in those sediments. Then, the sedimentary environment is presumed. Directions of natural remanent magnetization of 9 sites were measured. Six pyroclastics including one ash flow of basement were dated by fission-track method and the age of the Maragheh fauna was considered as 6.6 to 6.9 my

Hepatoprotective effects of phosphatidylserine liposomes on carbon tetrachloride-induced hepatotoxicity in rats

It has been proposed carbon tetrachloride (CCl 4 ) intoxication due to the production of free radicals and serum levels of aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) overload results hepatotoxicity. Phosphatidylserine (PS) has shown antioxidant activity in numerous studies. Therefore, this study was aimed to investigate the effects of PS liposomes treatment against the CCl 4 -induced hepatotoxicity in a rat model. Male Wistar rats were treated with PS (10 mg/kg, oral) or phosphatidylcholine liposomes (PC) (10 mg/kg, oral) for 3 days before CCl 4 (2 ml/kg; ip once on the third day) injection. The serum level of ALT, AST, and ALP were measured. Also, antioxidant assays were performed. Administration of PS with CCl 4 significantly inhibited alterations in the serum levels of AST, ALP ( ** P < 0.01), and ALT ( *** P < 0.001) compared with control group. Furthermore, measurement of malondialdehyde (MDA), catalase (CAT), and superoxide dismutase (SOD) levels indicated that PS significantly reduced reactive oxygen species. The results of the present study showed the hepatoprotective effects of PS against CCl 4 -induced hepatotoxicity in rats. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc