BACKGROUND Recent studies have suggested that, in patients with chronic hepatitis C, elevated iron stores are predictive of a poor response to interferon. AIMS To assess liver iron concentration and distribution before and after interferon treatment in patients with hepatitis C in order to evaluate further the role of iron in the pathogenesis of hepatitis C. PATIENTS Fifty-five patients wit...

abstract heavy metals uptake and their distribution in plants are different. in addition to the genetic factors, environmental factors such as interactions of heavy metals with essential elements are very important on the amount of heavy metals uptake. in this study, the effects of iron and manganese on accumulation of cadmium in shoot and root of sunflower and corn in different concentration o...

The relationship between the serum ferritin concentration and total body iron stores was investigated in 41 patients with idiopathic haemochromatosis and 199 first or second degree relatives. Thirty-two relatives (16.1%) had increased iron stores and serum ferritin levels were increased in all but one of them. The false-positive rate in the relatives with normal iron stores was 1.8% compared wi...

Iron can limit primary production in shallow marine systems, especially in tropical waters characterized by carbonated sediments, where iron is largely trapped in a non-available form. The Red Sea, an oligotrophic ecosystem characterized by a strong N-S latitudinal nutrient gradient, is a suitable setting to explore patterns in situ of iron limitation in macrophytes and their physiological perf...

The concentration of the iron-chelating agent, desferrioxamine (Desferal), that just inhibits iron entry into HeLa cells is also the concentration that inhibits DNA synthesis. As a first step in clarification of the mechanism whereby iron may partake in DNA synthesis, we have partially characterized several of the intracellular iron-binding sites. Most cytoplasmic iron appears to be bound to a ...

Mössbauer spectroscopy (MS) is not a routine method for the evaluation of the concentration of iron in samples. Due to its great advantage of being a method which does not destroy the sample, it is used when one is dealing with hardly available material, like extraterrestrial samples (e.g., meteorites, lunar soil) or with biological samples, which after the Mössbauer spectroscopy measurements m...