Influence of To?pa Peat Preparation on the phagocytic activity and bactericidal properties of granulocytes in healthy volunteers

It was found, that To?pa Peat Preparation (TPP) administered to healthy volunteers in doses of 100-300 mg/day during 14 days evoked the stimulation of the phagocytic and bactericidal activity of the granulocytes. The dose of 600 mg/day causes only a transient and insignificant increase of phagocytic and bactericidal properties of the granulocytes.     

Growth condition of iodine-doped n+-CdTe layers in metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy

Iodine doping of CdTe layers grown on (100) GaAs by metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE) was studied using diethyltelluride (DETe) and diisopropyltelluride (DiPTe) as tellurium precursors and ethyliodine (EI) as a dopant. Electron densities of doped layers increased gradually with decreasing the growth temperature from 425°C to 325°C. Doped layers grown with DETe had higher electron densities than those grown with DiPTe. When the hot-wall temperature was increased from 200°C to 250°C at the growth temperature of 325°C, doped layers grown with DETe showed an increase of the electron density from 3.7×10¹⁶ cm⁻³ to 2.6×10¹⁸ cm⁻³. On the other hand, such an increase of the electron density was not observed for layers grown with DiPTe. The mechanisms for different doping properties for DETe and DiPTe were studied on the basis of the growth characteristics for these precursors. Higher thermal stability of DETe than that of DiPTe was considered to cause the difference of doping properties. With increasing the hot-wall temperature from 200°C to 250°C, the effective ratio of Cd to Te species on the growth surface became larger for layers grown with DETe than those grown with DiPTe. This was considered to decrease the compensation of doped iodine and to increase the electron density of layers grown with DETe. The effective ratio of Cd to Te species on the growth surface also increased with decreasing growth temperature. This was considered to increase the electron density with decreasing growth temperature.     

Effects of cytogenin on spontaneous arthritis in MRL/1 mice and on pristane-induced arthritis (PIA) in DBA/1J mice

Cytogenin, 8-hydroxy-3-hydroxymethyl-6-methoxyisocoumarin, has low cytotoxicity on murine and human tumour cells in vitro. It augments or suppresses phagocytosis of macrophages and lymphocyte proliferation. It has been reported that cytogenin has a potent inhibitory effect clinically on adjuvant arthritis in Lewis rats and on type II collagen-induced arthritis in DBA/1J mice. Our experimental findings provide evidence that cytogenin has beneficial effects on spontaneous polyarthritis in MRL/1 mice and pristane-induced arthritis in DBA/1J mice. The results suggest that the mode of the anti-arthritic action of cytogenin is different from those of NSAIDs; although the precise mode of action remains unclear, cytogenin may become an excellent therapeutic agent for rheumatoid arthritis.     

Determination of porous glass surface free energy components from contact angles

The contact angles of water drops and diiodomethane drops on pellets made of controlled porosity glasses have been measured. The surface of the glasses was modified by thermal treatment at 873 K which led to an increase in the surface concentration of boron atoms. Glass modified with Carbowax 20M (polyethylene glycol) and fully hydroxylated glass have also been studied. Using the measured contact angles and modified Young equation, the dispersion and nondispersion components of the glass surface free energy have been calculated. The values show that with increasing heating time (increasing surface density of boron atoms) an increase in the surface polarity takes place. However, the polarity of the same samples decreases after treatment with Carbowax, increasingly so with higher boron atom concentrations.     

Spreading of a water drop on a marble surface

Measurements of the wetting contact angle for a marble surface were carried out for two systems: dry marble plate-water drop-saturated water vapour and marble wetted by water-water drop-dry air (in the presence of molecular sieves). The marble plate was placed in a measuring chamber and contact angles were measured after different lengths of time; it was found that their values grew to a maximum which was reached after about 30 min. It was found that when the dry marble plate was placed in saturated water vapour for 24 h the contact angle decreased in comparison with its maximal value. To explain the results obtained, theoretical calculations were made. The theoretical calculations and measurements showed that it was possible to obtain a contact angle greater than zero on a marble surface, depending on the structure and thickness of the water film.     

Recent Update on the Molecular Mechanisms of Gonadal Steroids Action in Adipose Tissue

The gonadal steroids, including androgens, estrogens and progestogens, are involved in the control of body fat distribution in humans. Nevertheless, not only the size and localization of the fat depots depend on the sex steroids levels, but they can also highly affect the functioning of adipose tissue. Namely, the gonadocorticoids can directly influence insulin signaling, lipid metabolism, fatty acid uptake and adipokine production. They may also alter energy balance and glucose homeostasis in adipocytes in an indirect way, e.g., by changing the expression level of aquaglyceroporins. This work presents the recent advances in understanding the molecular mechanism of how the gonadal steroids influence the functioning of adipose tissue leading to a set of detrimental metabolic consequences. Special attention is given here to highlighting the sexual dimorphism of adipocyte functioning in terms of health and disease. Particularly, we discuss the molecular background of metabolic disturbances occurring in consequence of hormonal imbalance which is characteristic of some common endocrinopathies such as the polycystic ovary syndrome. From this perspective, we highlight the potential drug targets and the active substances which can be used in personalized sex-specific management of metabolic diseases, in accord with the patient’s hormonal status.     

PGRP-LB: An Inside View into the Mechanism of the Amidase Reaction

Peptidoglycan recognition proteins (PGRPs) are ubiquitous among animals and play pivotal functions in insect immunity. Non-catalytic PGRPs are involved in the activation of immune pathways by binding to the peptidoglycan (PGN), whereas amidase PGRPs are capable of cleaving the PGN into non-immunogenic compounds. Drosophila PGRP-LB belongs to the amidase PGRPs and downregulates the immune deficiency (IMD) pathway by cleaving meso-2,6-diaminopimelic (meso-DAP or DAP)-type PGN. While the recognition process is well analyzed for the non-catalytic PGRPs, little is known about the enzymatic mechanism for the amidase PGRPs, despite their essential function in immune homeostasis. Here, we analyzed the specific activity of different isoforms of Drosophila PGRP-LB towards various PGN substrates to understand their specificity and role in Drosophila immunity. We show that these isoforms have similar activity towards the different compounds. To analyze the mechanism of the amidase activity, we performed site directed mutagenesis and solved the X-ray structures of wild-type Drosophila PGRP-LB and its mutants, with one of these structures presenting a protein complexed with the tracheal cytotoxin (TCT), a muropeptide derived from the PGN. Only the Y78F mutation abolished the PGN cleavage while other mutations reduced the activity solely. Together, our findings suggest the dynamic role of the residue Y78 in the amidase mechanism by nucleophilic attack through a water molecule to the carbonyl group of the amide function destabilized by Zn²⁺.     

The Co-Culture of Staphylococcal Biofilm and Fibroblast Cell Line: The Correlation of Biological Phenomena with Metabolic NMR1 Footprint

Staphylococcus aureus is one of the most prevalent pathogens associated with several types of biofilm-based infections, including infections of chronic wounds. Mature staphylococcal biofilm is extremely hard to eradicate from a wound and displays a high tendency to induce recurring infections. Therefore, in the present study, we aimed to investigate in vitro the interaction between S. aureus biofilm and fibroblast cells searching for metabolites that could be considered as potential biomarkers of critical colonization and infection. Utilizing advanced microscopy and microbiological methods to examine biofilm formation and the staphylococcal infection process, we were able to distinguish 4 phases of biofilm development. The analysis of staphylococcal biofilm influence on the viability of fibroblasts allowed us to pinpoint the moment of critical colonization—12 h post contamination. Based on the obtained model we performed a metabolomics analysis by ¹H NMR spectroscopy to provide new insights into the pathophysiology of infection. We identified a set of metabolites related to the switch to anaerobic metabolism that was characteristic for staphylococcal biofilm co-cultured with fibroblast cells. The data presented in this study may be thus considered a noteworthy but preliminary step in the direction of developing a new, NMR-based tool for rapid diagnosing of infection in a chronic wound.     

Classification of dissimilarity data with a new flexible Mahalanobis-like metric

Statistical pattern recognition traditionally relies on feature-based representation. For many applications, such vector representation is not available and we only possess proximity data (distance, dissimilarity, similarity, ranks, etc.). In this paper, we consider a particular point of view on discriminant analysis from dissimilarity data. Our approach is inspired by the Gaussian classifier and we defined decision rules to mimic the behavior of a linear or a quadratic classifier. The number of parameters is limited (two per class). Numerical experiments on artificial and real data show interesting behavior compared to Support Vector Machines and to kNN classifier: (a) lower or equivalent error rate, (b) equivalent CPU time, (c) more robustness with sparse dissimilarity data.     

Analysis of fluid flow and energy transport in Czochralski's process

In this paper the conjugate fluid flow and energy transport problem (involving conduction-convection-radiation heat transfer) resulting from the Czochralski crystal growth process is analysed. The solidifying material is treated as a pure and semitransparent substance with material properties depending neither on temperature nor on the wavelength. The solution of the problem is obtained iteratively using two computer codes: FLUENT, a commercial CFD package, and BEM-based in-house code capable of analysing the radiative heat transfer in the entire computational domain.Obtained results not only show velocity field and temperature distribution within the bodies under consideration but also demonstrate the influence of thermal radiation on these quantities.