[Identification of the functional activity of synthetic polyamine analogues using a biotest system based on highly proliferating cultured human cells].

A new biotest system was developed based on highly proliferating human cell cultures (lines LNCaP and PC-3). With the help of this system, two known synthetic polyamines--alpha-difluoromethylornithine (DFMO) and methylglioxalbis(guanylhydrason) (MGBG)--as well as four new synthetic analogues difenyl containing amines (DFCA-1-DFCA-4) with molecular weights of 725.5 (DFCA-1), 755.

[Polyamines and mental diseases].

The authors make an attempt to understand and evaluate the role of polyamines in the development of endogenous mental diseases. The article is dedicated to distribution and exchange of polyamines in the central nervous system, their metabolic and regulatory associations with gamma-aminobutyric acid and dopaminergic systems, as well as to possible neuromediatory and neuromodulatory functions of polyamines. The paper is also concerned with effects of psychotropic agents on polyamine metabolism and contains a hypothesis on the role of polyamines in etiopathogenesis of schizophrenia.

[Morphological and biochemical features of cerebral beta-amyloidosis in long-livers].

This is the first assessment of the pathogenetic values of some environmental factors in the occurrence and progression of cerebral beta-amyloidosis (Alzheimer's disease, senile dementia) in long-livers of different climatic areas of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania. New isoenzyme serum assays for determining creatine kinase BB-isoenzyme and the transaminase activity in the spinal fluid are proposed, which may be used as potential markers in the biochemical diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. They can both provide valuable information on the severity of morphological lesions of cerebral cells in Alzheimer's disease and serve as the basis for the differential diagnosis of different forms of dementia wherein dystrophic changes in CNS cells are absent or slightly pronounced.

[Molecular mechanisms of metabolic adaptation in pathological changed liver during toxic hepatitis ].

Possible molecular mechanisms underlying changes in catalytical properties of alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) were studied at toxic hepatitis. The development of toxic hepatitis is accompanied by significant changes in the activity of ADH and LDH assayed in subcellular fractions and kinetic characteristics of these enzymes. This can result in an increase cellular level of acetylaldehyde and lactate which promotes the development of liver cirrhosis.