Isolated nuclei from mammalian cells contain a calcium-dependent endonuclease. The produced DNA fragmentation is a necessary step in the sequence of events resulting in apoptosis (programmed cell death). We report here that zinc and cadmium inhibit the calcium-dependent endonuclease. The essential metal ion zinc may counterbalance the calcium-mediated apoptosis. In contrast to zinc, cadmium alo...

This report investigated the distribution of serum zinc and the factors determining serum zinc concentration in a large random population sample. The 1977 participants (959 men and 1018 women), 20-80 years old, constituted a stratified random sample of the population of four Belgian districts, representing two areas with low and two with high environmental exposure to cadmium. For each exposure...

Sensitivity of GABAA receptors (GABARs) to inhibition by zinc and other divalent cations is influenced by the alpha subunit subtype composition of the receptor. For example, alpha6beta3gamma2L receptors are more sensitive to inhibition by zinc than alpha1beta3gamma2L receptors. We examined the role of a His residue located in the M2-M3 extracellular domain (rat alpha6 H273) in the enhanced zinc...

Nanohelices of cadmium sulfide (CdS) have been made by the mineralization of supramolecular organic ribbons. A schematic representation of how coiled CdS helices (yellow) can be templated from a twisted ribbon (blue) by growth along one face of the ribbon is shown top right.

We present a systematic study of the effect of variation of the zinc oxide (ZnO) and copper indium gallium (di)selenide (CIGS) layer thickness on the absorption characteristics of CIGS solar cells using a simulation program based on finite element method (FEM). We show that the absorption in the CIGS layer does not decrease monotonically with its layer thickness due to interference effects. Erg...

In various mammalian cells, two group IIb metals, cadmium and zinc, induce several morphological and biochemical effects that are salient features of programmed cell death. In C6 rat glioma cells, cadmium caused externalization of phosphatidylserine, breakdown of the mitochondrial membrane potential, activation of caspase-9, internucleosomal DNA fragmentation, chromatin condensation, and nuclea...

soil contamination in the vicinity of the abandoned lakan lead and zinc mine was studied. the results showed that over the past decades, the environmental pollution was caused by lead, zinc tailings dam and acid mine drainage. the average of lead, zinc, cadmium, copper and nickel is 1295, 4273, 27, 185 and 92 mg/kg, respectively in the soils of tailings dam. these metals were continuously dispe...

The heavy metal cadmium is a widely dispersed environmental pollutant that has no biological function in the human body and is known to cause several adverse health effects, mainly on kidneys and bone and the endocrine system. Little is known about effects in early life. The main source of exposure in a non-smoking population is via basic foods such as cereals (e.g. wheat and rice) and vegetabl...

The present study deals with the stereological analysis of the changes in the seminiferous epithelium of rat testis, mediated either by cadmium alone or by cadmium plus zinc, chronically administered at low oral doses. Stereological estimates of both labeling indices of proliferative cell nuclear antigen and TUNEL-stained nuclei of spermatogonia, and of ubiquitin, ubiquitin carboxyl-terminal hy...

The solar cell structure based on copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) as the absorber layer, cadmium sulfide (CdS) as a buffer layer un-doped (i) and Aluminium (Al) doped zinc oxide (ZnO) as a window layer was simulated using the one dimensional simulation program called analysis of microelectronic and photonic structures (AMPS-1D). In the simulation, the thickness of CIGS layer was varied ...