BACKGROUND Fluid homeostasis is critical for normal function of the male reproductive tract and aquaporins (AQP) play an important role in maintenance of this water and ion balance. Several AQPs have been identified in the male, but their regulation is not fully comprehended. Hormonal regulation of AQPs appears to be dependent on the steroid in the reproductive tract region. AQP9 displays uniqu...

Aldehyde functions are widely used for immobilization of biomolecules on glass surfaces but have found little attention for biofunctionalization of self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) on gold, due to interference between thiol and aldehyde functions. This problem was recently solved by synthesis of an alkanethiol that carried a vicinal diol group [Jang et al. (2003) Nano Lett. 3, 691-694]. The lat...

Multi-resistance to antibiotic therapy and to biocides is becoming increasingly common, which has led to mounting concern worldwide regarding the future use of traditional antimicrobials. Diols or glycols also have antimicrobial effects. Pentane-1,5-diol has low oral toxicity, is essentially non-irritating to the skin and has high antimicrobial activities against bacteria, fungi and viruses. Th...

Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) are a biodegradable and biobased family of bacterial polyesters with different architectures. Among them, the poly-3-hydroxybutyrate (PHB) is one most conventional easily obtained by biotechnologies from bioresources. However, this thermoplastic polyester known since more than 50 years presents until now only very limited applications due to certain number drawbacks...

The dried plant was extracted with dichloromethane and after defatting with hexane, transferred repeatedly on silica columns using dichloromethane-hexane and ethyl acetate-hexane as mobile phases. Finally the fractions were purified by high performance liquid chromatography using a Pack-Sil column and hexane: Ethyl acetate as mobile phase. The structures of the isolated compounds included: cycl...

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) comprise a group of persistent organic pollutants that differ significantly in their physicochemical properties, their persistence, and their biological activities. They can be metabolized via hydroxylated and dihydroxylated metabolites to PCB quinone intermediates. We have recently demonstrated that both dihydroxy PCBs and PCB quinones can form semiquinone radi...

The interaction of dibenz[a,h]anthracene and its ultimate carcinogenic 3,4-diol-1,2-epoxide with lung surfactant phospholipid bilayers was successfully performed using molecular dynamics. The DPPC/DPPG/cholesterol bilayer (64 : 64 : 2) was used as the lung surfactant phospholipid bilayer model and compared with the DPPC bilayer as a reference. Dibenz[a,h]anthracene and its 3,4-diol-1,2-epoxide ...

RUzICKA et al. [1935] prepared a monosuccinic ester of androsterone, of which Prof. Ruzicka sent to us two water-soluble preparations for investigation: (1) the sodium salt and (2) the lithium salt. In the following they will be designated as "w.-s. androsterone". We also received from Prof. Ruzicka a lithium salt of the monosuccinic ester of androsterone-diol, which will be designated as "w.-s...

We first investigated the similarity in optical quality of a batch of diffractive intraocular lenses (DIOLs), providing experimental evidence for one DIOL as representative of a batch. Using adaptive optics, we then evaluated one DIOL under different levels of Zernike spherical aberration (SA) by applying both a point spread function test and a psychophysical visual acuity test. We found that f...

1. The synthesis of a number of 19-substituted androgens is described. 2. A method for the partially stereospecific introduction of a tritium label at C-19 in 19-hydroxyandrost-5-ene-3beta,17beta-diol was developed. The 19-(3)H-labelled triol produced by reduction of 19-oxoandrost-5-ene-3beta,17beta-diol with tritiated sodium borohydride is tentatively formulated as 19-hydroxy[(19-R)-19-(3)H]an...