Anti-obesity effect of the bacterial product nisin in an NIH Swiss mouse model.

Obesity is a life-threatening metabolic disorder that predisposes individuals to other diseases. In this study, the effect of nisin, a bacteriocin produced by some bacteria, on an animal model of obesity based on selected parameters was investigated. Forty Swiss NIH mice were randomly divided into four groups and received either a placebo (saline) or nisin (25, 50, or 100 μg/kg, ip) daily for 8 weeks.

Choroidal hemodynamic in myopic patients with and without primary open-angle glaucoma.

Purpose: To investigate the change in subfoveal choroidal blood flow in patients with glaucoma and to assess the effect of myopia, as one of the vascular risk factors for glaucoma on this flow.

Methods: Subfoveal choroidal blood flow in groups of 12 myopic and glaucomatous eyes has been investigated by means of the laser Doppler flowmetry (LDF), comparing the results with those of 17 myopic eyes without glaucoma, 34 non-myopic glaucomatous eyes and of 50 control eyes. The subfoveal choroidal LDF parameters, that is, blood velocity (ChBVel), volume (ChBVol), and flow (ChBF), as well as the vascular resistance were studied in each group.

Distribution of water-soluble crystallins in microsectioned cataractous lenses from one hundred Egyptian patients.

Morphologically classified lenses from 100 cataract patients from the Mansoura Eye Hospital (Egypt) were microdissected and the crystallin composition and distribution were analyzed by thin-layer isoelectric focusing (IEF). The IEF profiles of cataractous lenses were compared with each other, with those of sclerotic lenses and with a normal lens profile. The alterations in the composition of high-molecular-weight (HMW)-, alpha-, beta H-, beta L-, beta s-, and gamma-crystallins along with normal aging, are superimposed by pronounced cataract-related changes which are different for the various types of cataracts.

Basic biochemical parameters of one hundred cataractous lenses from Egyptian patients.

Cataractous lenses from an extended population of 100 Egyptian patients whose age, sex and case history had been recorded, were collected and classified morphologically. After determination of the lens wet weights, lenses were microsectioned and basic parameters such as wet weight, dry weight, water content and contents of water-soluble and water-insoluble crystallins of the samples were determined. The data obtained document moderate as well as drastic changes of the investigated parameters along with aging and cataractogenesis, and extend our knowledge from small numbers of hitherto investigated human lenses to a considerably high number of cases.