Standards of hourly excretion of B group vitamins with urine for children aged 9 to 13 years

Values of hour excretion of vitamins B1, B2, B6 and PP with urine in children of 9-13 years, studied under conditions of normal consumption of these vitamins, were estimated considering the correlation between the vitamins B concentration in blood and excretion of their metabolites with urine as well as using these parameters dependence on content of the vitamins in daily ration; for this purpose 35 adult persons and 31 children of both sexes were examined. Normal rate of riboflavin excretion with urine constituted 10-11 micrograms/h in children of this age, while of thiamine-11-12 micrograms/h. Under conditions of normal thiamine consumption, activity of erythrocyte transketolase, measured after preinactivation of transaldolase, exceeded 35 mumol/h/I ml of erythrocytes. Rates of excretion with urine of 4-pyridoxic acid and I-methyl nicotinamide were similar both in children and in adult persons and were equal to more than 40 micrograms/h and 400-600 micrograms/h, respectively.     

Simple inheritance of key traits distinguishing maize and teosinte

Here the current studies in cell DNA content of plasma cells (PC), from multiple myeloma (MM) patients is reviewed, focusing on two complementary aspects the detection of clonal abnormalities and the identification of the proliferative rate of PC. There is accumulating evidence that the measurement of cell DNA content by flow cytometry (FCM) is a useful parameter in the clinical evaluation of MM patients. Between 50 and 70% of MM patients display DNA aneuploidy, the majority of them being hyperdiploid. Comparing hyperdiploid with diploid patients, the former seem to display a better prognosis. Fluorescence in situ hybridization studies have confirmed that there is a high incidence of numerical chromosome abnormalities in MM and that trisomies are significantly more common than monosomies (84% vs 14%). The most frequent gains can be seen in chromosome 9 and 15 while the most common monosomies are those of chromosome 13 and X in females. The possibility of analysing the cell cycle distribution by using a propidium iodide (PI)/CD38 double staining technique may be an alternative to other more laborious methods of assessing the PC labelling index. Thus, patients with > 3% S-phase PC detected by FCM have an adverse prognosis and this parameter is one of the most important independent prognostic criteria for predicting survival in MM patients. Moreover, the number of S-phase PC, together with other prognostic factors, such as beta 2microglobulin, age and performance status can be a very useful tool for stratifying patients into groups in order to establish risk-directed therapeutic protocols.     

The chemico-pharmacological patterns in the action of plants from the family of Pyrolaceae

The effect of leaf decoctions of three plants of the Pyrolaceae family, namely, umbrella wintergreen, one-side ortilia, and round-leaf Pyrola was studied in rat experiments. All plants under study were found to contain approximately equal amounts of tannins and arbutin glycoside. Their concentration was comparable though rather lower than in common bearberry, a well-known plant with diuretic and antiseptic activity. When given for a long time, all Pyrolaceae increased urination and sodium excretion. Besides, their decoctions caused an antimicrobial effect. Only round-leaf Pyrola weakened the development of experimental inflammation. Its anti-inflammatory effect was probably due the presence of flavonoids the content of which in Pyrola was maximum.