Nanomaterials may be contaminated with bacterial endotoxin during production and handling, which may confound toxicological testing of these materials, not least when assessing for immunotoxicity. In the present study, we evaluated the conventional Limulus amebocyte lysate (LAL) assay for endotoxin detection in graphene based material (GBM) samples, including graphene oxide (GO) and few-layered...

The vertebrate embryonic ventricle transforms from a smooth-walled single tube to trabeculated right ventricular (RV) and left ventricular (LV) chambers during cardiovascular morphogenesis. We hypothesized that ventricular contraction patterns change from globally isotropic to chamber-specific anisotropic patterns during normal morphogenesis and that these deformation patterns are influenced by...

BACKGROUND Wolman disease (WD) is a rare lysosomal storage disorder that is caused by mutations in the LIPA gene encoding lysosomal acid lipase (LAL). Deficiency in LAL function causes accumulation of cholesteryl esters and triglycerides in lysosomes. Fatality usually occurs within the first year of life. While an enzyme replacement therapy has recently become available, there is currently no s...

New scaling factors are presented describing the altitude and latitudinal dependence of production rates for in situ produced cosmogenic nuclides. The new factors incorporate the influence of the non-dipole contributions to the geomagnetic field on the cosmic ray flux. The currently used scaling factors of Lal [Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 104 (1991) 424^439] are based on the assumption of a dipole...

Objective: Iron deficiency anemia (IDA) and beta-thalassemia trait (ß-TT) are the most common forms of microcytic anemia. This study was conducted to compare the validity of various discrimination indices in differentiating β-TT from IDA by calculating their sensitivity, specificity and Youden's index. Methods: Totally 323 subjects (173 children and 150 adults) with microcytic anemia were invol...

A number of immunocytochemical studies show that the vasopressinergic (AVP) system in the rat brain is far from homogeneous. For example the AVP innervation of the lateral septum (LS), originating from the medial amygdala and bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, appears to be sexually dimorphic and testosterone (T) dependent. At an adult age, T appears to induce AVP synthesis in these neurons, ...

Although the limulus amebocyte lysate (LAL) assay is widely used to determine the concentration of LPS in biological samples, it is known to be susceptible to interference caused by substances of non-bacterial origin. In particular, polysaccharides such as β-glucans and pectic polysaccharides from fungi or plants, respectively, were shown to give higher LPS readings than were actually present i...

Wolman disease results from an inherited deficiency of lysosomal acid lipase (LAL; EC 3.1.1.13). This enzyme is essential for the hydrolysis of cholesteryl esters and triacylglycerols derived from endocytosed lipoproteins. Because of a complete absence of LAL activity, Wolman patients accumulate progressive amounts of cholesteryl esters and triacylglycerols in affected tissues. To investigate t...

An attempt was made to confirm and extend the findings of an earlier study on the rewarding properties of testosterone in male mice using conditioned place preference (CPP). Previous results had only partially demonstrated such an effect because the reinforcement depended on environmental cues such as the colour of the compartment. High individual variability was evident, suggesting that basal ...

The objective of this study was to fill in additional knowledge gaps with respect to the extraction, storage, and analysis of airborne endotoxin, with a specific focus on samples from a dairy production facility. We utilized polycarbonate filters to collect total airborne endotoxins, sonication as the extraction technique, and 0.05% Tween 20 in pyrogen-free water (PFW) as the extraction solutio...