Publications by authors named "A KARAKITSOU"

Objective: We hypothesise that exposure to aflatoxins and fumonisins, measured in serum, alters protein synthesis, reducing serum protein and insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), increasing inflammation and infection, leading to child's linear growth failure.

Design: Children 6-35 months, stratified by baseline stunting, were subsampled from an intervention trial on quality protein maize consumption and evaluated at two time-points.

Setting: Blood samples and anthropometric data were collected in the pre-harvest (August-September 2015) and post-harvest (February 2016) seasons in rural Ethiopia.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The present study aims at evaluating potential genotoxic and cytotoxic effects caused by the occupational exposure of farmers to pesticide mixtures in the Aitoloakarnania Prefecture (Greece). The aforementioned assessment was conducted through in vivo Cytokinesis Block Micronucleus assay (CBMN assay) in peripheral blood lymphocytes, in relation to chemical analysis of pesticide residues in blood samples. The exposure of the farmers' population studied to different combinations of pesticides induced significant differences in the frequencies of micronuclei (MN) compared to those of the control group.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Multiple system atrophy (MSA) is characterized by the presence of distinctive glial cytoplasmic inclusions (GCIs) within oligodendrocytes that contain the neuronal protein alpha-synuclein (aSyn) and the oligodendroglia-specific phosphoprotein TPPP/p25α. However, the role of oligodendroglial aSyn and p25α in the formation of aSyn-rich GCIs remains unclear. To address this conundrum, we have applied human aSyn (haSyn) pre-formed fibrils (PFFs) to rat wild-type (WT)-, haSyn-, or p25α-overexpressing oligodendroglial cells and to primary differentiated oligodendrocytes derived from WT, knockout (KO)-aSyn, and PLP-haSyn-transgenic mice.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The environmental fate of metazachlor herbicide was investigated under field conditions in rapeseed cultivated and uncultivated plots, over a period of 225 days. The cultivation was carried out in silty clay soil plots with two surface slopes, 1 and 5 %. The herbicide was detectable in soil up to 170 days after application (DAA), while the dissipation rate was best described by first-order kinetics and its half-life ranged between 10.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF