Our aim was to describe sperm parameters in residents from Northern Chile. We evaluated in 101 volunteers (18 and 30 years old) urinary and drinking water Boron levels using Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry; semen parameters were measured with standardized methods. Each individual was categorized in 3 levels of exposure: low (B levels in urine ≤ 2.94 mgL1 or tap water ≤ 3.0 mgL-1), ...

in recent years, several plant species have been used as bioindicators, and several tests have been developed to evaluate the toxicity of the environmental contaminants. in this study, the root length and dna band pattern of root tips in maize (zea mays l.) seedlings were exposed at different concentration of cadmium pollutant (40 and 80 mg l−1). the results indicated that the root length of ma...

The endogenous cannabinoid 2-arachidonoylglycerol (2-AG) is produced by neurons and other cells in a stimulus-dependent manner and undergoes rapid biological inactivation through transport into cells and catalytic hydrolysis. The enzymatic pathways responsible for 2-AG degradation are only partially understood. We have shown previously that overexpression of monoacylglycerol lipase (MGL), a cyt...

A monoacylglycerollipase (MGL) was purified from Pseudomonas sp. LP7315 by ammonium sulfate precipitation, anion-exchange chromatography, and preparative electrophoresis. The purified enzyme was homogeneous on an SDS-polyacrylamide gel with a molecular mass of 59 kDa. Its hydrolytic activity was confirmed to be specific for monoglycerides: the enzyme did not hydrolyze diand triglycerides. MGL w...

Mg is an important determinant of erythrocyte cation transport system(s) activity. We investigated cation transport in erythrocytes from mice bred for high (MGH) and low (MGL) Mg levels in erythrocytes and plasma. We found that K-Cl cotransport activity was higher in MGL than in MGH erythrocytes, and this could explain their higher mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration, median density, and ...

In atopic dermatitis (AD) and psoriasis (Pso), inflammatory skin diseases with a high patient burden, understanding which subsets of dendritic cells (DCs) macrophages (MØs) are involved in the disease pathogenesis remains key to developing effective treatments. Limited subpopulations DCs MØs that thought drive Th2-mediated immune responses mice express macrophage galactose-type C-type lectin (M...

A fundamental feature of bacterial evolution is a succession of adaptive mutational sweeps when fitter mutants take over a population. To understand the processes involved in mutational successions, Escherichia coli continuous cultures were analyzed for changes at two loci where mutations provide strong transport advantages to fitness under steady-state glucose limitation. Three separate sweeps...

OBJECTIVE To compare concentration of contrast medium for vascular opacification at ascending aorta using retrospective reconstruction of coronary CT angiography. STUDY DESIGN Retrospective study. MATERIAL AND METHOD Eighty-four patients undergoing coronary CT angiography with 16 multi-detector rows at Siriraj Hospital between September 2003 and July 2004 were included in this study. The pa...

Arsenic (As) pollution is a major environmental and agricultural issue across the world. Due to industrialization over exploitation of ground water are two most important factors for occurrence arsenic in water. The irrigation contaminated poses threat not only plant system ultimately it affects all living forms on global. Early germination seedlings affected by concurrent increase As exposure ...

To better understand the metabolism of sulfur-containing amino acids, which likely plays a key role in a variety of cell functions, in Entamoeba histolytica, we searched the genome data base for genes encoding putative orthologs of enzymes known to be involved in the metabolism. The search revealed that E. histolytica possesses only incomplete cysteine-methionine conversion pathways in both dir...