Soil samples from a former cokery site polluted with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were assessed for their toxicity to terrestrial and aquatic organisms and for their mutagenicity. The total concentration of the 16 PAHs listed as priority pollutants by the US Environmental Protection Agency (US-EPA) was 2634+/-241 mg/kgdw in soil samples. The toxicity of water-extractable pollutants f...

BACKGROUND Despite the widespread clinical application of ropivacaine, there is little information on the cellular cardiac effects of the drug. In the current study, therefore, the concentration-dependent effects of ropivacaine on action potential morphology and the underlying ion currents were studied and compared with those of bupivacaine in isolated canine ventricular cardiomyocytes. METHO...

The ATP-sensitive K(+) (KATP) channel is an emerging pathway in the skeletal muscle atrophy which is a comorbidity condition in diabetes. The "in vitro" effects of the sulfonylureas and glinides were evaluated on the protein content/muscle weight, fibers viability, mitochondrial succinic dehydrogenases (SDH) activity, and channel currents in oxidative soleus (SOL), glycolitic/oxidative flexor d...

In an attempt to identify potential new agents that are active against HIV-1, a series of novel pyridopyrimidine-5-carbohydrazide derivatives featuring a substituted benzylidene fragment were designed and synthesized based on the general pharmacophore of HIV-1 integrase inhibitors. The cytotoxicity profiles of these compounds showed no significant toxicity to human cells and they exhibited anti...

1. Glucocorticoids are highly effective in controlling chronic inflammatory diseases, such as asthma and rheumatoid arthritis, but the exact molecular mechanism of their anti-inflammatory action remains uncertain. They act by binding to a cytosolic receptor (GR) resulting in activation or repression of gene expression. This may occur via direct binding of the GR to DNA (transactivation) or by i...

The analysis of in vitro anti-malarial drug susceptibility testing is vulnerable to the effects of different statistical approaches and selection biases. These confounding factors were assessed with respect to pfmdr1 gene mutation and amplification in 490 clinical isolates. Two statistical approaches for estimating the drug concentration associated with 50% effect (EC50 ) were compared: the com...

To compare the effects of sub-anaesthetic concentrations of propofol and halothane on the respiratory control system, we have studied the acute ventilatory response to isocapnic hypoxia (AHVR) in 12 adults with and without three different concentrations of propofol and halothane. Target doses for propofol were 0, 0.05, 0.1 and 0.2 of the effective plasma concentration (EC50 = 8.1 micrograms ml-...

Phloxine is used as a food dye. In this study, genotoxicity of phloxine at the root tip Allium cepa L. was investigated. A. meristematic cells were treated with ten different doses phloxine. way, EC50 value determined. Then, applied to tips EC50/2, and EC50×2 doses. Treatment time determined 24, 48 72 hours. As result, it revealed that caused chromosomal aberrations in mitotic cycle cepa. There...

We examined for first time the ripened fruits of Indian yellow raspberry (Rubus ellipticus Smith) (RE), an under exploited fruit from the Nilgiris, India, for its polyphenolic compounds and in vitro antioxidant/radical scavenging ability. The fruit yielded phenolic content (TPh) of 6100 ± 0.082 mg gallic acid equivalents (GAE)/100g of fresh material (FM) and total flavonoid content (TFl) of 320...