The authors discuss functional characterization of Mousterian tools on the basis of their use-wear and residue analysis of five lithic tools from Mezmaiskaya cave and Saradj-Chuko grotto in the North Caucasus. The results represent the first comprehensive use-wear and residue analysis carried out on Mousterian stone artefacts in the Caucasus. This study unequivocally confirms the use of bitumen for hafting stone tools in two different Middle Paleolithic cultural contexts defined in the Caucasus, Eastern Micoquian and Zagros Mousterian.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMorphological and functional characteristics of erythrocytes, hemoglobin, and erythropoietin level in the venous blood were evaluated by laser interference microscopy, Raman spectroscopy with a short-focus extreme aperture lens monochromator, and by ELISA, respectively, in 30 patients with verified moderate COVID-19 at the time of hospitalization and 30 healthy volunteers. The patients whose course of COVID-19 has worsened to critical by day 5 had already had lower (p<0.001) indicators at the time of hospitalization such as the area and thickness of erythrocytes, the hemoglobin distribution and packing density, hemoglobin conformation index (I/I)/(I/I) reflecting its oxygen affinity, and blood erythropoietin content.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study shows that membrane-associated cytoskeletal protein structures and the erythrocyte morphology undergo profound changes during hypoxia. Hypoxia also intensified oxidative processes in the lipid phase of the bilayer of red blood cell membranes. Sodium nitroprusside impaired the morphology of red blood cells and altered quantitative and qualitative composition of membrane-skeletal proteins.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIt has been shown that the intensification of oxidative processes is observed when somatic nerves of rats are damaged. Accumulation of malondialdehyde occurs, and the phase properties of the lipid bilayer change, especially in the distal part of the nerve. Under the same conditions, there are multidirectional changes in the activity of antioxidant enzymes, superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity decreases, and catalase (CAT) activity increases.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFront Physiol
April 2019
It has been shown that in the somatic nerve's lipids, both during excitation and transection, changes occur with the composition of individual phospholipids and in phospholipids fatty acids, which changes the phase state of the myelin and nerve fiber axolemma lipid bilayer. A main contribution in the nerve degenerative processes is dependent on the composition phospholipid's fatty acid changes during the activation of both Ca-dependent and Ca-independent phospholipase A forms. At the same time, we studded changes in phosphoinisitol (PI) and diacylglycerol (DAG), which depend on the phosphoinositide cycle function during nerve excitation and degeneration processes.
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