Impact of polychlorinated biphenyls contamination on estrogenic activity in human male serum.

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are thought to cause numerous adverse health effects, but their impact on estrogen signaling is still not fully understood. In the present study, we used the ER-CALUX bioassay to determine estrogenic/antiestrogenic activities of the prevalent PCB congeners and PCB mixtures isolated from human male serum. The samples were collected from residents of an area with an extensive environmental contamination from a former PCB production site as well as from a neighboring background region in eastern Slovakia.

Photochemistry and photophysics of Cr(III) macrocyclic complexes.

The phosphorescence and photochemical behavior of the macrocyclic complexes (1,4,7,10,13,16-hexaazacyclooctadecane)chromium(III) (Cr([18]-aneN(6))(3+); 1) and (4,4',4''-ethylidynetris(3-azabutan-1-amine)) chromium(III) (Cr(sen)(3+); 2) have been compared to each other and to the complex Cr(en)(3)(3+). For both macrocyclic complexes, phosphorescence from room temperature aqueous solutions is too weak to be observed, contrasting with Cr(en)(3)(3+), though both had somewhat longer 77 K lifetimes than Cr(en)(3)(3+). Phosphorescence lifetimes for these macrocyclics decreased with increasing temperature much faster than for Cr(en)(3)(3+) and a conventional extrapolation based on a fit of reciprocal lifetimes (corrected for the low-temperature contribution) to the Arrhenius equation gave estimated room temperature phosphorescence lifetimes of a few nanoseconds, consistent with the failure to observe room temperature emission.