Does Background Matter? A Comparative Characterization of Mouse Models of Autosomal Retinitis Pigmentosa rd1 and Pde6b-KO.

Many retinal degenerative diseases result in vision impairment or permanent blindness due to photoreceptor loss or dysfunction. It has been observed that Pde6b mice (rd1), which carry a spontaneous nonsense mutation in the gene, have a strong phenotypic similarity to patients suffering from autosomal recessive retinitis pigmentosa. In this study, we present a novel mouse model of retinitis pigmentosa generated through gene knockout using CRISPR/Cas9 technology.

Novel Phenyl-Based Bis-quaternary Ammonium Compounds as Broad-Spectrum Biocides.

Herein we report the synthesis and microbiological evaluation of novel phenyl based bis-quaternary ammonium compounds (bis-QACs). Using a simple 2-step synthetic route from dibromo- and dihydroxybenzenes, we obtained a structurally diverse broad panel of bis-QACs with topologically distinct bridging connections between pyridinium heads. Selected analogs possessed potent broad-spectrum biocidal activity against both bacterial and fungal pathogens: methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (ATCC 43300); Escherichia coli (ATCC 25922), Klebsiella pneumonia (ATCC 700603), Acinetobacter baumannii (ATCC 19606), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (ATCC 27853), Candida albicans (ATCC 90028), Cryptococcus neoformans var.

Method of Reduction Background Fluorescence in Human Fetal Brain Tissue and Quantitative Estimate of the Effect of Photobleaching.

We developed a method of reducing the background fluorescence of samples made from formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded blocks of the brain of the second-trimester human fetuses. For reducing excess background fluorescence, the samples were subjected to photobleaching using an LED lamp with blue and red emission peaks in the range of visible spectrum in a construction of an original design. The decrease in the background autofluorescence was checked by measuring the intensity of the emitted background fluorescence of the samples and relative abundance of immunopositive structures after immunohistochemical staining.

[Prenatal ontogenesis of the human brain cortex temporal area].

Prenatal ontogenesis of temporal areas of the human cortex was studied. In the fetal cortex at the gestational age of 16-18 weeks three zones can be distinguished: marginal zone (eI layer), cortex plate and subplate. At 20-26 weeks cortex plate is divided into following layers: eII, eIII, eIV, eV and eVI, with "efferent" complex of layers being wider than "associative" one.