Polyamine metabolism in cystic fibrosis

Increased blood levels of spermidine and an increased spermidine/spermine ratio is documented in 31 patients with cystic fibrosis (CF). Some 29 percent of CF patients overlap with the control group. An abnormality of urinary free polyamines or their metabolic derivatives related to electrolyte transport, serum ciliostatic factors, and the autonomic nervous system are elaborated upon.     

Dent's disease; a familial proximal renal tubular syndrome with low-molecular-weight proteinuria, hypercalciuria, nephrocalcinosis, metabolic bone disease, progressive renal failure and a marked male predominance

We describe a familial form of renal Fanconi syndrome characterized by hypercalciuria, low-molecular-weight proteinuria, nephrocalcinosis and slowly progressive renal failure. Males are much more severely affected than females. The patients studied included 15 males and 10 females, and five families with up to three generations involved. Studies of the two largest families described here have already shown that their disease is inherited on the X-chromosome. The series contains the two unrelated patients originally described by Dent and Friedman in 1964 as 'hypercalcuric rickets'.     

Mutational analysis of residues forming hydrogen bonds in the Rieske [2Fe-2S] cluster of the cytochrome bc1 complex in Paracoccus denitrificans

A retrospective case-control study was conducted to determine why some infants born full-term without obstetric intervention to hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg)-seropositive mothers become infected by hepatitis B virus (HBV) despite having received passive-active immunoprophylaxis. Cases and controls comprised 12 hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg)-seropositive infants and 22 HBsAg-seronegative infants, respectively. Infants infected by putative vaccine-escape mutants were excluded. Risk factors, after adjustment for the level of maternal viremia, were the following allelic base changes in maternal HBV:C158, A328, G365, and A479 (P = .017, .005, .003, and .005, respectively). High-level maternal viremia (i.e., > or = 10(8) genome equivalents/mL) was a significant factor only after adjustment for G365 (P = .027). HBV DNA sequences recovered from one of the cases, the case's mother, and three infected contacts all had the high-risk mutations. Specific allelic mutations in maternal HBV and level of maternal viremia are potential predictors of vertical breakthrough infection.     

Some peculiar features of liquid supply to the root medium of plants growing in microgravity

Sixteen point probes monitored moisture level in the root medium of the wheat plants grown in greenhouse SVET on the MIR/NASA space science program. The article outlines types of water migration in the absence of gravity. Hydrophysical characteristics of perspective root media have been explored. Results of the water supply monitoring and control in the course of experiment are reported. The authors put forward porous root media to facilitate water migration and aeration.     

The antidyslipoproteinemic activity of ufibrate in patients with non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus

Ufibrate (150 mg daily) was found to have a beneficial effect on main parameters characterizing lipid metabolism, with no effect being exerted on carbohydrate metabolism, as evidenced by three months' follow-up of 24 patients aged 42 to 65 presenting with insulin-nondependent type II diabetes mellitus and hyperlipidemia. Ufibrate appeared to be a most efficacious long-term drug treatment option, particularly so in those patients presenting with initially high blood levels of a great many of lipid fractions.