Aburto and colleagues present a meta-analysis in adults on the effect of sodium reduction on blood pressure and other variables. With minor exceptions, this article is similar to another meta-analysis in the same issue of the BMJ; this again is similar to a 2004 Cochrane review,which is a minimal update of a previous analysis. Furthermore Aburto and colleagues’ current meta-analysis of populati...

Fluoride and vanadate are known to induce the Ca(2+)-dependent K+ efflux. We found that both agents concomitantly induced the Ca(2+)-dependent 22Na+ influx. The extent of the Ca(2+)-dependent 22Na+ influx induced by vanadate was very small in human red blood cells but clearly visible in guinea-pig red blood cells. The effect of fluoride has been studied in human red blood cells only. The 22Na+ ...

Phorbol-14-myristate-13-acetate (PMA) (10-10 mol/l) inhibited the Ca-dependent K efflux (the Gárdos effect GE) induced by Ca, the hyperpolarisation accompanying the GE, the vanadate-induced Ca influx, and depolarised the membrane, in vanadate-treated human red blood cells (RBC). The GE induced by propranolol (PLL) was not inhibited by PMA. Both PMA and PLL stimulated the basal Ca influx. These ...

The vanadium-containing chloroperoxidase from the fungus Curvularia inaequalis is heterologously expressed to high levels in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Characterization of the recombinant enzyme reveals that this behaves very similar to the native chloroperoxidase. Site-directed mutagenesis is performed on four highly conserved active site residues to examine their role in catalysis. W...

The study of the effects exerted by vanadium on living systems has recently became an object of growing interest. In fact, the possibility to develop vanadium as a new drug in the treatment of diabetes and cancer calls for the individuation of the cellular vanadate-sensitive targets. Moreover, the fact that vanadium can be an environmental pollutant in urban and industrial areas, as a consequen...

When amphipathic cationic drugs are added to intact human RBCs. the RBCs first undergo a stomatocytic shape change and then. if relatively large amounts of drug are added and if the metabolic state of the RBC is appropriate. endocytic vacuoles form. Vanadate has a structural similarity to the transition state of phosphate. which presumably accounts for its ability to inhibit phosphohydrolases. ...

Multifunctionality of vanadate garnet phosphors in latent fingerprint detection, security inks, and dual-mode temperature sensing.

Using para-nitrophenyl phosphate (pNPP) as a substrate for enzymatic activity, we sought to identify CaN in Paramecium. We isolated three different pNPP-phosphatases from the soluble fraction of Paramecium cells by anion-exchange and affinity column chromatographies. One, pNPP-phosphatase Peak I, is very similar to mammalian CaN. Divalent cation dependency, inhibition by calmodulin (CaM) antago...

Efforts to improve the quality of in vitro matured oocytes by blocking germinal vesicle breakdown (GVBD) and allowing more time for ooplasmic maturation have achieved little due to a lack of knowledge on the molecular events during GVBD blocking. Such knowledge is also important for studies aimed at regulating gene expression in maturing oocytes prior to GVBD. We studied species difference and ...