Nigella sativa L. (NS) has been used for medicinal purposes since ancient times. This study aimed to investigate the cytotoxicity of NS dry methanolic extract on cultured cortical neurons and its influence on neurotransmitter release, as well as the presence of excitatory (glutamate and aspartate) and inhibitory amino acids (gamma-aminobutyric acid-GABA-and glycine) in NS extract. Cultured rat ...

Platelet basic protein (PBP) (isoelectric point, 10.0-10.5; apparent Mr, 11,000-15,000) has been purified to homogeneity from material secreted by fresh human platelets after stimulation by thrombin. The purification, using preparative isoelectric focusing and chromatography on heparin-Sepharose, yielded two additional peptides with antiheparin activity that were immunologically identical with ...

A sensitive high-performance liquid chromatographic method for determination of ranitidine (RAN) in rabbit plasma is described. The method is based on liquid-liquid extraction, labeling with dansyl chloride and monitoring with fluorescence detector at 338nm (ex)/523nm (em). Plasma samples were extracted with diethyl ether alkalinized with 1M sodium hydroxide. Ephedrine HCl (EPH-HCl) was used as...

The purpose of this work was to study the stability of betahistine (BET) at different stress conditions and to develop a sensitive stability-indicating high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) assay method. The stress conditions applied were including the effect of heat, moisture, acid-base, and ultra-violet (UV) light. Betahistine and its decomposition products were derivatized by reacti...

Algae dietary supplements are marketed worldwide as natural health products. Although their proprieties have been claimed as beneficial to improve overall health, there have been several previous reports of contamination by cyanotoxins. These products generally contain non-toxic cyanobacteria, but the methods of cultivation in natural waters without appropriate quality controls allow contaminat...

Matrix effects of different biological samples, including phosphate-buffered saline-bovine serum albumin (PBS-BSA), gelded horse serum, mouse serum, and mouse brain, were investigated for the determination of 17α- and β-estradiol using derivatization with dansyl chloride prior to LC-MS/MS. Matrix effects were evaluated based on the slopes of regression lines plotted from results obtained in bio...

Polyproteins comprise long polypeptides that are post-translationally cleaved into proteins of different function, or tandemly repetitive polypeptides which are processed into multiple versions of proteins which are presumed to have the same function. In the latter case the individual units of the polyprotein can differ substantially in sequence. Identity of function between the different units...

Cancers are one of the main causes of human deaths globally. Great effort has been dedicated to the search for sensitive and specific markers of cancer. Polyamines including mainly putrescine (PUT), spermidine (SPD), and spermine (SP), are promising tumor markers since their excretion is frequently elevated in patients with various types of cancers. In the present study, we developed an efficie...

Formation of histamine, tryptamine, phenylethylamine and tyramine (vasoactive amines) in dry fermented sausage Petrovská klobása during drying and ripening in traditional room (B1) and industrial ripening chamber (B3) were investigated. Dansyl chloride derivatized vasoactive amines were determined using HPLC-DAD on Eclipse XDB-C18 column. Histamine, the most important amine from food safety poi...

Plasma fibronectin, which is also known as cold-insoluble globulin, consists of two polypeptide chains of approximately 250,000 daltons joined by disulfide bonds located near one end of the molecule. Proteolytic digestion of human plasma fibronectin and NHz-terminal sequence analysis of some of the fragments produced were used to locate the gelatin-binding region of fibronectin within the intac...