It has been shown that mesothelioma expresses the antiapoptotic protein BCL-XL, but not BCL-2, rendering bcl-xl gene expression a potential therapeutic target. Sodium butyrate (NaB) is a histone deacetylase inhibitor capable of alteration of bcl-2 family protein expression in other tumor types. Mesothelioma cell lines (REN, I-45) were exposed to NaB, and viability (colorimetric assay) and apopt...

The chemical composition and the particle size distribution of 37 maize silages produced in north-west of Portugal were determined. Mean dry matter (DM), crude protein (CP), neutral detergent ®bre (NDF) and starch were 288 33, 81 9, 502 45 and 229 54 g kgÿ1 DM, respectively. Particle size was determined by manual separation of fresh silage into three fractions: material >30 mm in length; materi...

to study the effects of foliar application of common and nano-sized iron sulphate on five sunflower cultivars (alster, olsion, hysun36, yourflour and hysun33) under two levels of salinity (0 and 100 mm nacl), a pot experiment in factorial based using a randomized complete block design with three replications was conducted. plant height, leaf area, shoot weight, chlorophyll content and the conce...

AIMS To determine sperm nuclear DNA integrity and to investigate the relation between fenvalerate (FE) exposure and spermatozoa DNA damage. METHODS Sperm DNA fragmentation was detected by a modified alkaline single cell gel electrophoresis (Comet) assay and a terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase mediated dUTP nick end labelling (TUNEL) assay. The olive tail moment (OTM) and percentage tail D...

Human calprotectin (CP) is a metal-chelating antimicrobial protein of the innate immune response. The current working model states that CP sequesters manganese and zinc from pathogens. We report the discovery that CP chelates iron and deprives bacteria of this essential nutrient. Elemental analysis of CP-treated growth medium establishes that CP reduces the concentrations of manganese, iron and...

Using linear response approach to the Mössbauer isomer shift, the calibration constant alpha((57)Fe) was obtained from high level ab initio calculations carried out for a representative set of iron compounds. The importance of the effects of relativity and electron correlation for an accurate description of the (57)Fe isomer shift is demonstrated on the basis of the Hartree-Fock, coupled cluste...

Existing electrochemical methods for the determination of iron require long deposition times to determine low iron levels. Here a new method, based on catalytic cathodic stripping voltammetry, is described to determine subnanomolar levels of iron in seawater. The new method has a better baseline and is generally simplified, leading to a lower reagent blank and minimized sample handling compared...