German health-related environmental monitoring: assessing time trends of the general population's exposure to heavy metals.

The German system of a health-related environmental monitoring is based upon two instruments: The German Environmental Survey (GerES) and the Environmental Specimen Bank (ESB). The ESB is a tool to describe time trends of human exposure. Each year approx.

Production and specificity of antibodies against the central region of type II collagen.

Collagen type-specific antibodies as well as antibodies to particular portions of the molecule are extremely useful tools especially for the quantification of collagens and for immunohistochemical examinations in developing embryos. Quantification of collagens in CNBr-solubilized tissue samples presupposes the production of antibodies against CNBr-derived collagen fragments. For the first time, as antigens for the immunization of rabbits, cyanogen-bromide derived fragments of collagen type II were used, obtained by direct digestion of tissue (Swarm chondrosarcoma from rat) and separation by gel filtration chromatography.