Enforcement of drunken driving laws in cases involving injured intoxicated drivers

The uptake of vitamin D3 by the liver cells and its hydroxylation in the hepatocytes of rats at experimental diabetes has been studied. It is proved that in this pathology the disturbances of vitamin D3 exchange in the rat liver take place. It is concluded that the lowering of the level of absorption of vitamin D3 by hepatocytes and its transportation to these cells from reticulocytes as well as the inhibition of vitamin D3-25-hydroxylase liver systems can be the most probable cause of these disturbances.     

Improving mass spectrometric sequencing of arginine-containing peptides by derivatization with acetylacetone

Modification of arginine residues in bradykinin, [1-5]-bradykinin, splenopentin and two synthetic pentapeptides with acetylacetone (pentane-2,4-dione) significantly increases the relative abundance of sequence-specific fragment ions produced by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI). The fragmentation efficiency as measured by post-source decay in a reflectron time-of-flight mass spectrometer increases by a factor of 2-3.5. Peptide bonds adjacent to modified residues are more susceptible to cleavage than in the non-derivatized peptide ions. The increased lability of these bonds gives rise to more complete sequence information. In addition, the relative abundances of sequence-specific fragment ions are enhanced. This strategy makes it possible to obtain valuable structural information from arginine-containing peptides that otherwise do not fragment well.