We take advantage of the site-selective nature of the ^{75}As and ^{63}Cu NMR techniques to probe the Cu substitution effects on the local magnetic properties of the FeAs planes in Ba(Fe_{1-x}Cu_{x})_{2}As_{2}. We show that the suppression of antiferromagnetic Fe spin fluctuations induced by Cu substitution is weaker than a naive expectation based on a simple rigid band picture, in which each C...

Iron (Fe) availability restricts diatom growth and primary production in large areas of the oceans. It is a challenge to assess the bulk Fe nutritional health of natural diatom populations, since species can differ in their physiological and molecular responses to Fe limitation. We assayed expression of selected genes in diatoms from the Thalassiosira genus to assess their potential utility as ...

There is currently an increased consumption of vegetables within the local urban community. However, contamination of these vegetables with heavy metals poses a potential health hazard. Consequently, the potential contamination problem due to the effect of levels of some heavy metals (Fe, Mg, Zn, Mn, Cu and Cr) in soils and vegetables irrigated with drainage urban grey waste water were investig...

Pot and field experiments were done to establish the effect of Rhizobium inoculation, Molybdenum and lime supply on the availability of micronutrients (Cu, Zn, Mn, Fe, B and Mo) in Phaseolus vulgaris L. In both field and pot experiments, Rhizobium inoculation significantly improved uptake of Mn, Fe, Cu, Zn, B and Mo in all organs (roots, shoots, pods and whole plants) except the Mo uptake in ro...

Pair-fed rats were given diets containing 250 ppm added Cu with or without 5% Senecio jacobaea (S J), a poisonous plant containing the highly toxic pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PA). Levels of Cu, Zn and Fe were determined in whole liver, kidney, spleen, serum and subcellular fractions of liver. Serum ceruloplasmin and hematocrit values were also obtained. At 5 wk, a 7.5-fold increase in liver Cu wa...

Iron and copper are both essential elements and deficiencies in either lead to a wide variety of symptoms. They also appear to be linked to each other biologically. One of the most characteristic hallmarks of Cu deficiency is a hypochromic, microcytic anaemia. The mechanism involved has not been worked out, but it seems that Cu, especially and perhaps exclusively as ceruloplasmin (EC 1.16.3. 1)...

Cytochrome c oxidase (CcO), the terminal enzyme in the mitochondrial respiratory chain, catalyzes the four-electron reduction of dioxygen to water in a binuclear center comprised of a high-spin heme (heme a(3)) and a copper atom (Cu(B)) coordinated by three histidine residues. As a minimum model for CcO, a mutant of sperm whale myoglobin, named Cu(B)Mb, has been engineered, in which a copper at...

The aim of our study was to evaluate the mineral composition (Zn, Cu, Ca, Fe, Mg, P) of breast tumor tissue and hair, and to investigate the role of Zn and Cu contents in diet on tumor development, with DMBAinduced rat breast cancer being the experimental model. Female Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into study groups which, apart from the standard diet, were treated with Zinc ions (Zn) or Cop...