STUDIES ON THE ROLE OF CYTOKINES POLYMORPHISM IN PATHOGENESIS OF CHRONIC URTICARIA

Fifty patients with chronic autoimmune urticaria (CAU) and forty-eight patients with chronic idiopathic urticaria (CIU) have been examined. Blood serum contents of IL-4, IL-10 and IL-17A, spontaneous and induced cytokine production in blood cells, as well as polymorphism of IL-4 (C-589T), IL-10 (G-1082A), IL-17A (G-197A) cytokine genes has been studied. No differences have been detected when studying IL-4 levels, depending on genetic variants of IL-4 gene in patients with CAU and CIU. Increased IL-10 amounts in patients with CIU still did not show any correlations with IL-10 genotype (G-1082A). Increased IL-17A levels in patients with CAU were associated with homozygous genotype of AA in comparison to control group, and with heterozygous GA genotype, in comparison to CIU group. The revealed differences of cytokines` genes polymorphism in CAU and CIU provide a molecular-genetic evidence for different clinical forms of chronic urticaria

RIAM: A Universal Accessible Protocol for the Isolation of High Purity DNA from Various Soils and Other Humic Substances

A single universal open protocol RIAM (named after Research Institute for Agricultural Microbiology) for the isolation of high purity DNA from different types of soils and other substrates (high and low in humic, clay content, organic fertilizer, etc.) is proposed. The main features of the RIAM protocol are the absence of the sorption–desorption stage on silica columns, the use of high concentrations of phosphate in buffers, which prevents DNA sorption on minerals, and DNA precipitation using CTAB. The performance of RIAM was compared with a reference commercial kit and showed very good results in relation to the purity and quantity of DNA, as well as the absence of inhibitory activity on PCR. In all cases, the RIAM ensured the isolation of DNA in quantities much greater than the commercial kit without the effect of PCR inhibition up to 50 ng DNA per reaction in a volume of 15 µL. The latter circumstance along with the ability of the protocol to extract low molecular weight DNA fractions makes the method especially suitable for those cases where quantitative assessments, detection of minor components of soil microbiota, and completeness of isolation of all DNA fractions are required

Interference Correlations of Hyperons in Neutron-Carbon Interactions

The interference correlations of \Lambda-hyperon pairs produced on the carbon target by 20-70 GeV neutrons have been investigated with the EXCHARM spectrometer. Destructive correlations at low relative 4-momenta are observed for \Lambda\Lambda-pairs. No correlations of this type are observed for \Lambda\bar{\Lambda}. Comparison with the corresponding data on meson correlations shows a decrease of production area sizes with an increase of particle masses