Accurate and precise zinc isotope ratio measurements in urban aerosols.

We developed an analytical method and constrained procedural boundary conditions that enable accurate and precise Zn isotope ratio measurements in urban aerosols. We also demonstrate the potential of this new isotope system for air pollutant source tracing. The procedural blank is around 5 ng and significantly lower than published methods due to a tailored ion chromatographic separation.

Role of biophysical parameters on ex vivo and in vivo gene transfer to the airway epithelium by polyethylenimine/albumin complexes.

Efficient gene transfer to the airways by nonviral vectors is a function of different parameters, among which the size and the charge of the transfecting particles. The aim of this study was to determine the transfection efficiency of polyethylenimine (PEI)/albumin polyplexes in ex vivo and in vivo models of respiratory epithelium and to correlate it with biophysical characteristics of the particles. Complexes were obtained by adding different amounts of human serum albumin (HSA) to PEI polyplexes preformed in saline.

Could birthweight prediction models be improved by adding fetal subcutaneous tissue thickness?

Aim: The aims of the study were to: (i) compare the accuracy of standard ultrasonic algorithms in the estimation of fetal weight and; (ii) test two new algorithms in order to improve the global performance of birthweight prediction by adding fetal subcutaneous tissue thickness.

Methods: We enrolled 398 patients who were between 34 and 42 weeks' gestation. Routine ultrasonographic biometric parameters as well as subcutaneous tissue thickness ultrasound parameters were measured.

Ultrasound-determined fetal subcutaneous tissue thickness for a birthweight prediction model.

Aim: The aim of this study was to explore a birthweight prediction model using ultrasound determined tissue thickness (SCTT) parameters.

Methods: We measured routine ultrasonographic biometric parameters and in addition, fetal SCTT in 201 healthy singleton pregnancies. Mid-arm fat and lean mass, mid-thigh fat and lean mass, subscapular fat mass and abdominal fat mass (AFM) were measured in order to calculate a birthweight prediction model.

Single inherited thrombophilias and adverse pregnancy outcomes.

Introduction: Inherited thrombophilia is believed to be a multiple gene disease with more than one defect. We aimed to determine the association between single thrombophilic patterns and a variety of pregnancy diseases.

Methods: 284 pregnant women were recruited for the present study and were divided in two groups: A group (176 controls) and B group (108 cases).

Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection destroys the barrier function of lung epithelium and enhances polyplex-mediated transfection.

Challenged by the lack of success of experimental gene therapy of cystic fibrosis, we set out to investigate one of the potential causes of this failure, the barrier function of the airway epithelium and the way this is affected by bacterial infection. In an in vitro model of the airway epithelium we determined the effect of Pseudomonas aeruginosa or Escherichia coli on the transfection efficiency of polyethylenimine (PEI)-plasmid DNA complexes, carrying a luciferase gene, as well as on the barrier function of the epithelial cell layer, using transepithelial resistance (TER), cytotoxicity, bacterial transmigration, and morphological appearance as parameters. The level of luciferase expression was more than one order of magnitude higher in the cells which, before transfection, were incubated with P.

Genomic context vectors and artificial chromosomes for cystic fibrosis gene therapy.

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is caused by mutations of the CF transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) gene, which encodes a cAMP dependent chloride channel whose expression is finely tuned in space and time. Gene therapy approaches to CF lung disease have demonstrated partial efficacy and short-lived CFTR expression in the airways. Drawbacks in the use of classical gene transfer vectors include immune response to viral proteins or to unmethylated CpG motifs contained in bacterially-derived vector DNA, and shut-off of viral promoters.

Mean platelet volume: association with adverse neonatal outcome.

The aim of the study was to investigate on a possible association between maternal mean platelet volume (MPV) and oxygen-metabolic changes in pregnancies affected by altered maternal-fetal Doppler velocimetry. We considered the altered maternal-fetal Doppler velocimetry group (n = 57) pregnant women admitted to our Institution for a pregnancy complication associated to the event Pre-eclampsia (PE) and intrauterine growth retardation (IUGR), with altered Doppler velocimetry in the umbilical artery ( UA) (high pulsatility index, absence or reverse end diastolic flow (ARED), blood flow cephalisation) and/or bilateral increased resistance in uterine arteries. Out of these cases, 25 pregnancies were complicated by PE and 32 pregnancies were complicated by IUGR.

Doppler velocimetry alterations related to platelet changes in third trimester pregnancies.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the correlations between the haematological parameter mean platelet volume and Doppler velocimetry parameters in order to improve clinical management in third trimester complicated pregnancies (pre-eclampsia, PE, and IUGR) affected by altered uterine resistances. Fifty-one patients were included in the abnormal uterine arteries Doppler velocimetry group (25 pregnancies were complicated by PE, 26 pregnancies were complicated by IUGR). Ninety-nine normotensive pregnant women taking no drugs for at least 2 weeks prior to testing and with no difference in gestational age at evaluation, with normal Doppler velocimetry profiles at routine screen, were used as controls.

Quantitative evaluation of RASSF1A methylation in the non-lesional, regenerative and neoplastic liver.

Background: Epigenetic changes during ageing and their relationship with cancer are under the focus of intense research. RASSF1A and NORE1A are novel genes acting in concert in the proapoptotic pathway of the RAS signalling. While NORE1A has not been previously investigated in the human liver, recent reports have suggested that RASSF1A is frequently epigenetically methylated not only in HCC but also in the cirrhotic liver.

Sources of anthropogenic lead in sediments from an artificial lake in Brasília-central Brazil.

Pb concentration and Pb isotopic composition are known to represent powerful tools to investigate the history of Pb pollution in water and sediments. In this paper, we present and discuss the results of a detailed study of sediments deposited in the Paranoá Lake, a 44-year-old artificial reservoir in Brasília, central Brazil. Pb concentration and isotopic composition of the sediments were obtained by ID-TIMS, on three different sample fractions: leachate, residue, and bulk sample.

Serum albumin enhances polyethylenimine-mediated gene delivery to human respiratory epithelial cells.

Background: The interaction of polyethylenimine (PEI) polyplexes with proteins in cystic fibrosis (CF) airway secretions poses a significant hurdle to this nonviral delivery system. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether albumin may increase the efficiency of PEI complexes in mediating gene transfer into respiratory epithelial cells in the presence of CF mucus.

Methods: PEI (25 kDa) was complexed to DNA in the presence of human serum albumin (HSA) and used to transfect confluent A549 and 9HTEo- cells.

Amniotic fluid lamellar body counts for the determination of fetal lung maturity: an update.

Aim: To reassess the cut-off value for lamellar body counts (LBs) for fetal lung maturity (FLM) over a 10-year study period.

Patients And Methods: 178 pregnancies were selected under strict inclusion criteria and delivered within 48 h from amniocentesis. FLM was determined by amniotic fluid LBs in centrifuged samples (300 x g for 10 min) in a commercially available Coulter Counter.

Neutrophil recruitment and airway epithelial cell involvement in chronic cystic fibrosis lung disease.

The pathological hallmark of cystic fibrosis (CF) chronic inflammatory response is the massive neutrophil influx into the airways. This dysregulated neutrophil emigration may be caused by the abnormal secretion of chemoattractants by respiratory epithelial cells and polarised lymphocyte T-helper response. Neutrophils from CF patients have a different response to inflammatory mediators than neutrophils from normal subjects, indicating that they are primed in vivo before entering the CF airways.

[Experience on the pancreatic function after an episode of acute biliary oedematous pancreatitis].

The authors have examinated 35 patients 4 - 5 years after a previous episode of acute oedematous biliary pancreatitis. 20 patients had been cholecystectomized while 15 had not been operated. The patients of the first group didn't show any impairment of the endocrine or exocrine pancreatic function while the patients who were not cholecystectomized in 4 cases on 15 showed an impairment of the exocrine pancreatic function valued with the elastase-1 test in the stools.

K-ras and p16(INK4A)alterations in sputum of NSCLC patients and in heavy asymptomatic chronic smokers.

NSCLC rates among the most frequent and lethal neoplasm world-wide and a significant decrease in morbidity and mortality relies only upon effective early diagnostic strategies. We investigated K-ras mutations and p16(INK4A) hypermethylation in tumor tissue and sputum of 50 patients with NSCLC and correlated them with sputum cytology and with tumor staging, grading and location, to ascertain, in sputum, their potential diagnostic impact. The same genetic/epigenetic abnormalities and cytological features were also evaluated in sputum from 100 chronic heavy smokers.

Methylation framework of cell cycle gene inhibitors in cirrhosis and associated hepatocellular carcinoma.

One of the main regulatory pathways reported to be altered in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is that of cell cycle control involving RB1 gene-related cell inhibitors. We investigated p14(ARF), p15(INK4B), p16(INK4A), p18(INK4C), and RB1 genes in a series of HCCs and associated cirrhosis with the goal of ascertaining their pattern of inactivation by gene methylation. Thirty-three HCCs, adjacent nonneoplastic cirrhotic tissues, and 6 HCC cell lines were studied.

The Sm-Nd isotopic method in the geochronology laboratory of the University of Brasília.

Nd isotopes represent one of the best tools to investigate the processes involved in the evolution of the continental crust and mantle. This is due mainly to the similar geochemical behaviour of Sm and Nd, both light rare earth elements, which inhibits their fractionation during most varied geological processes. In order to carry out crustal evolution studies in central Brazil, the Sm-Nd isotopic method was implanted at the Geochronology Laboratory of the University of Brasília.

Vascular non-protein thiols: prooxidants or antioxidants in atherogenesis?

Abstract-cell-mediated lipoprotein oxidation may be due to generation of non-protein thiols (NP-SH) from cystine with formation of oxidizing species. However, NP-SH, especially GSH, may also exert antioxidant effects in vitro and in vivo. To further investigate whether vascular NP-SH could be prooxidants or antioxidants in atherosclerosis, we have correlated the aortic content of NP-SH with that of lipoperoxides in 10 rabbits fed on a fat-enriched atherogenic diet for 9 weeks.

Minimal and asymptomatic chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy.

Objectives: Show the chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP) is not only clinically heterogeneous but extremely variable in severity.

Methods: Three patients were referred for mild distal paresthesiae lasting more than 6 months and one for inguinal and thigh pain later ascribed to coxarthrosis. Strength was normal in all patients and tactile sensation reduced distally only in one.

Antioxidant properties of ticlopidine on human low density lipoprotein oxidation.

We found that ticlopidine, at therapeutically relevant concentrations (2.5-10 microM), but not aspirin nor salicylate, significantly counteracted copper-driven human LDL oxidation. Ticlopidine, at 5 and 10 microM, was also antioxidant on peroxyl radical-induced LDL oxidation; yet it was ineffectual on thiol and ascorbate oxidation mediated by peroxyl radicals themselves, suggesting that drug antioxidant capacity is somehow related to the lipoprotein nature of the oxidizable substrate, but not to radical scavenging.