Platelet Indices of Selenium Status in Healthy and Selenium-Deficient Sheep: a Comparison with Selenium Indices in Plasma, Whole Blood, and Red Blood Cells.

Several biomarkers have been used to evaluate selenium (Se) status in livestock. However, there is no report on the potential usefulness of the Se indices of platelets in diagnosis of Se deficiency in large animals. In the current study, Se concentration and glutathione peroxidase (GPx) activity in platelets of 38 healthy and 142 Se-deficient ewes were assessed, and their correlation with plasma Se concentration, plasma GPx activity, whole blood Se concentration, and erythrocyte GPx activity was determined.

In solution cation-induced secondary and tertiary structure alterations of human calprotectin.

Calprotectin (CP) is widely considered to have diverse roles including growth inhibitory and apoptosis induction in a number of tumor cell lines and antimicrobial activities. As CP has been proposed to bind metal ions with high affinity, we have studied its functional and primarily its structural behavior upon Zn(2+) and Mn(2+) chelation solely and along with Ca(2+). We employed fluorescence spectroscopy and circular dichroism to determine the resulting modifications.