The membrane potential and conductance of the giant muscle fiber of a barnacle (Balanus nubilus Darwin) were analyzed in relation to changes in the external (3.5-10.0) and the internal (4.7-9.6) pH, under various experimental conditions. A sharp increase in membrane conductance, associated with a large increase in conductance to Cl ions, was observed when the external pH was lowered to values b...

In the present study, the DPPH and ABTS+ radical scavenging activity of eight types of apples decreased (P < 0.05) during the 70-day storage at 4°C. The Fushi (F2) apples from Xin Jiang showed the highest radical scavenging activity. For in vivo study, 40 male Kunming mice (body weight 20-25 g) were selected and randomly assigned to four groups (10 mice per group). The F2 groups (F2S, F2 + ster...

B romide (Br) causes positive interference with all clinical laboratory methods for the detenmination of serum Cl (1 .2). Interference with Cl measurement is much greater with ion-selective electrode (ISE) technology (1 .3) than with coubometry (1 -4). We recently described a patient ingesting therapeutic amounts of pynidostigmine Br (MestInon1 , containing 1 8.4 mg of Br [30.6%j per 60-mg tabl...

BACKGROUND Cationic liposome (CL)-DNA complexes are promising gene delivery vectors with potential application in gene therapy. A key challenge in creating CL-DNA complexes for application is that their transfection efficiency (TE) is adversely affected by serum. In particular, little is known about the effects of a high serum content on TE, even though this may provide design guidelines for ap...

BACKGROUND Urinary Schistosomiasis is a neglected tropical disease endemic in many sub Saharan -African countries. Collectin Kidney 1 (CL-K1, encoded by COLEC11 on chromosome 2p25.3), a member of the vertebrate C-type lectin super family, has recently been identified as pattern-recognition molecule (PRR) of the lectin complement pathway. CL-K1 is preferentially expressed in the kidneys, but als...

BACKGROUND Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) and other head and neck cancer (HNCA) types show a great epidemiological variation in different regions of the world. NPC has multifactorial etiology and many interacting risk factors are involved in NPC development mainly Epstein Barr virus (EBV). There is a need to scrutinize the complicated network of risk factors affecting NPC and how far they are d...