Oral carnosine supplementation prevents vascular damage in experimental diabetic retinopathy.

Backgrounds/aims: Pericyte loss, vasoregression and neuroglial activation are characteristic changes in incipient diabetic retinopathy. In this study, the effect of the antioxidant and antiglycating dipeptide carnosine was studied on the development of experimental diabetic retinopathy.

Materials/methods: STZ-induced diabetic Wistar rats were orally treated with carnosine (1g/kg body weight/day).

Carnosine prevents apoptosis of glomerular cells and podocyte loss in STZ diabetic rats.

Background/aims: We identified carnosinase-1 (CN-1) as risk-factor for diabetic nephropathy (DN). Carnosine, the substrate for CN-1, supposedly is a protective factor regarding diabetic complications. In this study, we hypothesized that carnosine administration to diabetic rats might protect the kidneys from glomerular apoptosis and podocyte loss.

Electron capture, collision-induced, and electron capture-collision induced dissociation in Q-TOF.

Recently, we demonstrated that a radio-frequency-free electromagnetostatic (rf-free EMS) cell could be retrofitted into a triple quad mass spectrometer to allow electron-capture dissociation (ECD) without the aid of cooling gas or phase-specific electron injection into the cell (Voinov et al., Rapid Commun Mass Spectrom 22, 3087-3088, 2008; Voinov et al., Anal Chem 81, 1238-1243, 2009).

Comparison of two different methods for CA19-9 antigen determination.

Background: This study was designed to investigate the clinical performance of the Access GI Monitor (Beckman Coulter) on the UniCel DxI 800, a method for CA19-9 antigen determination, and to compare with CA19-9 assay on the AxSYM system (Abbott).

Methods: 1,063 serum samples from unselected patients with different underlying diagnoses were tested with both methods. Passing-Bablok regression analysis and Bland Altman analysis was performed.

High resolution mass analysis of N- and C-terminal negative ions resulting from resonance electron capture by aliphatic amino acids.

High mass resolving power was applied to study resonance electron capture by glycine, alanine, and valine, and accurate mass measurements helped to distinguish between some negative ions having the same nominal masses. It was established that the C- and N-terminal negative ions of the same nominal masses were formed at different electron energies from different resonance states. The typical fragmentation pathways in deprotonated amino acids via loss of water initiated by collisional activation were not observed upon resonant electron capture by aliphatic amino acids.