Frequency of the carrier state for X-linked chronic granulomatous disease among females with lupus erythematosus

Carriers for chronic granulomatous disease (CGD) and patients with lupus erythematosus (LE) share several characteristics: They are mostly females, they reduce nitroblue tetrazolium (NBT) poorly in their neutrophils, and, in some cases, they have similar skin lesions. We thus investigated 19 female LE patients for the presence of laboratory findings characteristic of the carrier state for CGD. None of these patients turned out to have the combined abnormality of neutrophil bactericidal activity and neutrophil NBT-reduction that is diagnostic of CGD carrier state in the X-linked form. An increased frequency of CGD carriers among female LE patients thus appear to be unlikely. Why some CGD carriers develop skin lesions typical of LE remains unexplained.     

Renal responses of Australian lungfish to vasotocin, angiotensin II, and NaCl infusion

The Australian lungfish (Neoceratodus forsteri) responds to intravenous injections of 0.63 ng/kg or more of arginine vasotocin with increased dorsal aortic blood pressure, inulin clearance, urine flow, and tubular rejection of Na+. Single injections of 1 ng/kg or more of angiotensin II or norepinephrine also increase dorsal aortic pressure but do not cause consistent diuresis and natriuresis, Continuous infusions of angiotensin II or repeated injections of norepinephrine produce sustained hypertension and more modest diuresis and natriuresis than are seen after injections of arginine vasotocin that cause less hypertension. Infusions of isosmolar or hyposmolar NaCl solutions increase blood pressure, inulin clearance, urine flow, and tubular Na+ rejection in a manner resembling the response to argininge vasotocoin injections. These data are consistent with the hypothesis that arginine vasotocin is released in response to volume expansion in lungfishes and that it may act on the kidney as a diuretic and natriuretic hormone. They do not rule out a more direct action of expansion on renal functions.     

Statistical analysis of decay of organophosphorus and pyrethroid insecticides and carbaryl on paddy rice, maize, sunflowers and field peas

A model is developed to describe the decay of seven insecticides on stored paddy rice, maize, sunflowers and peas, and is shown to be more precise than each of six literature models on pesticide decay. It relates residues (R), as a ratio of applied concentration (R(0)), to time after insecticide application (t), modifying the usual first-order kinetics equation lnR=lnR(0)-kt by assuming that the rate constant k has a mixture of values according to a gamma distribution with mean K. The resulting equation is lnR=lnR(0)-Kcln(1+t/c), where c is a constant determined empirically. For large c, this model reduces to the first-order model with K=k. The parameter K is further modelled as linear in temperature for maize and rice. The rate of loss of protectants was found not to be seriously affected by co-application with other insecticides, and this is a useful finding for future studies on rates of loss of grain protectants. The apparent rate of loss was also not seriously affected by the method of analysis, whether by gas chromatography or high-performance liquid chromatography, and this finding supports previous validation of the methods.     

Determination of the charge-transfer kinetics of ferrocene at platinum and vitreous carbon electrodes by potential steps chronocoulometry

Potential step chronocoulometric methods were used to measure kinetic parameters for the oxidation of ferrocene at platinum vitreous carbon electrodes in acetonitrile. The formal rate constants observed, k^o_f ～ 0.02 cm s^?1, were independent of electrode material and of the supporting electrolyte chosen (LiClO₄, TEAP or TEABF₄). After correcting for the effects of double layer structure, the experimental activation energy for electron transfer was found to be ΔG≠ (exp) = 0.03 ±0.01 eV molecule^?1 which agreed within 20% with a theoretical value ΔG≠ (theor) = 0.26 eV molecule^?1 calculated for activation by solvent repolarization alone from the Born equation.     

Analysis of Phenolic Composition of Noble Muscadine (Vitis rotundifolia) by HPLC‐MS and the Relationship to Its Antioxidant Capacity

Abstract: Phenolic compounds and anthocyanins in muscadines have attracted much attention due to their diverse biological activities. With bioassays of antioxidant activities in terms of total phenolic content (TPC), total anthocyanin content (TAC), total procyanidin content (TPA), oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC), and ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) of different parts of the Noble muscadine, the butanol (BuOH) extract of the muscadine skin showed the highest TPC (317.91 ± 1.83 mg GAE/100 g FW), which might be ascribed to its high TAC of 227.06 ± 1.29 mg/100 g fresh weight (FW). The ethyl acetate (EtOAc) extract of the muscadine seed contained the highest TPA (55.30 ± 0.63 mg CE/100 g FW). Correlation analyses demonstrated a significant linear relationship of TPC and TAC compared to their ORAC and FRAP values within the range of R² from 0.9283 to 0.9936, which suggested that phenolics and anthocyanins in the extracts contributed significantly to their antioxidant potential. Nineteen individual phenolics and 5 anthocyanins were identified by HPLC‐MS, which indicated different chemical profiles of anthocyanins and other phenolics in the muscadine extracts. Practical Application: The paper has provided rich information of bioactive phytochemical profiles in different solvent extracts and their correlation with the antioxidant activity in the muscadine that is a very special regional fruit in U.S. Its high content of phenolic compounds demonstrates that muscadine could be beneficial to human health.     

NMR microscopy of single neurons at 500 MHZ

Previous NMR microimaging studies at 360 MHz have demonstrated a clear differentiation between the nucleus and cytoplasm in isolated single neurons. In particular, theT ₂ of the cell nucleus is 2.5 times larger than that of the cytoplasm. In order to determine the magnitude of possibleT ₂ ^* influences on these observations, images of single cells have been obtained at 500 MHz using spin-echo and line-narrowing sequences. Comparison of the images acquired by the two sequences, and of the spin-echo images at 360 and 500 MHz, imply that anyT ₂ ^* contributions are relatively small. Consequently, the measuredT ₂ differences in spin-echo imaging represent a true difference in theT ₂ relaxation in the two cellular compartments.