Growing demands for crops have expanded agricultural production to sandy soils with low available phosphorus (P) content and high P mobility. Knowledge of speciation solubility in such is poorly understood. Here we investigated: i) the clay size fraction soils, ii) pH-dependent soil orthophosphate (PO4–P), iii) particle size-dependent P. The studied loamy sand were organic matter (2.6–7.9 g kg−...

Celadonite (K[Mg2+,Fe2+][Fe3+,Al3+](Si4O10)(OH2)) is a common void-filling mineral in ocean floor and ophiolite lavas that forms during low-temperature, off-axis, hydrothermal alteration. Its occurrence provides important information about the sink of K from seawater into upper oceanic crust. New age determinations for celadonitic samples ~20 km section Troodos ophiolite, along with published a...

Aluminium is known to be toxic to cells from bone, brain and bone marrow but the molecular target(s) affected by Al3+ are not known. We show here that Al3+ disrupts the oscillatory free Ca2+ responses of hepatocytes exposed to the Ca2(+)-mobilizing agonist phenylephrine. Al3+ initially increases the frequency of the oscillations and later induces broad Ca2+ spikes lasting several minutes. These...

BACKGROUND In diabetes, protein function is altered by glycation, but the impact on the Fe3+ binding and antioxidant functions of transferrin (Tf) is largely unknown. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of glycation on the distribution of Fe3+ on the two Fe3+ -binding sites of Tf. METHODS In vitro glycation of Tf was accomplished by preincubation with glucose for 14 da...

Geminiviruses replicate their small, single-stranded DNA genomes through double-stranded DNA intermediates in plant nuclei using host replication machinery. Like most dicot-infecting geminiviruses, tomato golden mosaic virus encodes a protein, AL3 or C3, that greatly enhances viral DNA accumulation through an unknown mechanism. Earlier studies showed that AL3 forms oligomers and interacts with ...

Literature regarding the biochemistry of aluminum and eight similar ions is reviewed. Close and hitherto unknown similarities were found. A hypothetical model is presented for the metabolism, based on documented direct observations of Al3+ and analogies from other ions. Main characteristics are low intestinal absorption, rapid urinary excretion, and slow tissue uptake, mostly in skeleton and re...

The effects of the trivalent cation aluminum (Al3+) on voltage activated calcium channel currents were examined. Al3+ blocks sustained and transient components of voltage activated calcium channel currents of cultured rat dorsal root ganglion (DRG) cells. Currents were elicited by voltage jumps from -80 to 0 mV. The channel block was use dependent. Steady state blockade occurred after 1 to 5 mi...