Effects of Chromium Picolinate on Micronucleus Frequency and Morphology of Lymphocytes in Calves

We report the effects of chromium picolinate (CrPic) on micronucleus frequency, morphology of lymphocytes, and lipid peroxidation in calves. Twenty-four Holstein calves were selected for the study. They were kept in a farm and were fed a commercially available calf diet and alfalfa, ad libitum. The animals were divided into three groups of eight subjects each and were treated as follows: The first group was supplemented with a daily dose of 200 μg Cr as chromium picolinate; a second group received 400 μg Cr per day and a third group that served as control received no supplemental chromium. After 12-week supplementation, blood samples were collected to determine the micronucleus frequency, the apoptotic cell percentage, and the malondialdehyde (MDA) and blood chromium levels. In both supplemented groups, the cells had irregularly shaped and segmented nuclei. Supplementation also increased the percentage of apoptotic cells (p < 0.001) and serum MDA (p < 0.01) and slightly increased the chromium levels. The animals supplemented with 400 μg showed a significant increase of micronucleus frequency (p < 0.01). The results of this study suggest that supplementation with 200 and 400 μg chromium as chromium picolinate may lead to cytotoxicity. The higher level of supplementation may also have genotoxic effects. However, further studies investigating the mechanism of the action of CrPic are required.     

Airborne fungi in vegetable growing areas of Edirne, Turkey

We aimed at the investigation of the airborne fungiand their outdoor incidence in five vegetable growingareas in Edirne province (Turkey) by exposing a petridish with potato dextrose agar medium to air for 15minutes and then counting the number of growingcolonies. Sampling procedure for fungi was performed6 times in research stations at an interval of onemonth between April–September 1996. From the 90petri dishes obtained fungi were isolated and 1166colonies were counted. 12 genera (Absidia,Alternaria, Aspergillus, Botryotrichum, Chlamydomyces,Cladosporium, Endocochlus, Fusarium, Nematochtonus,Penicillium, Trichoderma and Torula) and 25species were identified. Among them, Aspergillusclavato-nanica and Penicillium estinogenum arevery likely to be new records for Turkey. Cladosporium carpophilum and Alternariaalternata were the most abundant species in the studyarea. Correlation analyses were applied to the data.     

Examining Microscopic Organisms under Augmented Reality Microscope: A 5E Learning Model Lesson

As a fundamental strategy for all science curriculum, inquiry is of prime importance. In order to facilitate inquiry during science education in middle school, 5E learning model was applied in this study. Following 5E learning model during a lesson, students can engage in a topic after being served to mitigate cognitive disequilibrium or familiar with daily-life examples such as yoghurt fermentation, oven spring, etc. explore the topic making an observation or testing hypothesis, explain and relate their experiences scientifically, extend or elaborate their knowledge and then being evaluated. This study introduces a sample 5E learning model for middle school students at the ages of 10–12 in science laboratory with an augmented reality microscope MicrosAR to examine microscopic organisms based on inquiry-based learning.     

Valorization of a biomass: phytochemicals in oilseed by-products

A huge amount of residue is released every year in agricultural and food industries. If this waste is valorised properly, it would be very beneficial from both economic and environmental aspects. Recently, seeds of oil crops have been getting great interest due to their waste rich in a great variety of lipophilic and hydrophilic phytochemicals. On the other hand, oilseed processing by-products comprise approximately 35 millions of tons seed for oil in European Union. Therefore, this remarkable amount of residue should be considered as a resource from waste to health. The purpose of the present research is to introduce the types of oilseed by-product and their high added value phytochemicals by summarizing the recent studies on the valorization of different wastes of several oilseed crops. This research also supplies an overview of the oilseed sources with their botanical names, production regions and target phytochemical ingredients. Moreover, further remarks with some certain concerns are discussed.     

Assessment of sesame (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Sesamum indicum</Emphasis> L.<Emphasis Type="Bold">)</Emphasis> cake as a source of high-added value substances: from waste to health

The risk of exhaustion of natural resources and raw materials have given rise to emerging trends such as recycling of food waste. From the economical and ecological points of view, conversion of biowaste to high added value compounds has been getting great attention among the science and commercial entities. Due to their high-added value phytochemicals, agricultural and food residues have been a great significant to the researchers around the world. This study focuses on the valorisation of cake derived from sesame oil processing. If the very valuable non-nutrient phytochemicals in sesame cake are not evaluated properly, they would be consumed as just animal feed or fertilizers. They might be employed as antiaging (in pharmaceutical products), or free radical scavenger (in dietary supplements), or preservative additive against lipid oxidation (in fat containing food products). This review article aims to present pharmacological and therapeutic effects of sesame cake extract by pointing out its application in pharmaceutical, cosmetic and food industries.     

Targeted metabolomic profiling of low and high grade serous epithelial ovarian cancer tissues: a pilot study

Introduction

Epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) remains the leading cause of death from gynecologic malignancies and has an alarming global fatality rate. Besides the differences in underlying pathogenesis, distinguishing between high grade (HG) and low grade (LG) EOC is imperative for the prediction of disease progression and responsiveness to chemotherapy.

Objectives

The aim of this study was to investigate, the tissue metabolome associated with HG and LG serous epithelial ovarian cancer.

Methods

A combination of one dimensional proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1D H NMR) spectroscopy and targeted mass spectrometry (MS) was employed to profile the tissue metabolome of HG, LG serous EOCs, and controls.

Results

Using partial least squares-discriminant analysis, we observed significant separation between all groups (p?<?0.05) following cross validation. We identified which metabolites were significantly perturbed in each EOC grade as compared with controls and report the biochemical pathways which were perturbed due to the disease. Among these metabolic pathways, ascorbate and aldarate metabolism was identified, for the first time, as being significantly altered in both LG and HG serous cancers. Further, we have identified potential biomarkers of EOC and generated predictive algorithms with AUC (CI)?=?0.940 and 0.929 for HG and LG, respectively.

Conclusion

These previously unreported biochemical changes provide a framework for future metabolomic studies for the development of EOC biomarkers. Finally, pharmacologic targeting of the key metabolic pathways identified herein could lead to novel and effective treatments of EOC.

     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">PLP1</Emphasis> Gene Variation Modulates Leftward and Rightward Functional Hemispheric Asymmetries

Molecular neurobiological factors determining corpus callosum physiology and anatomy have been suggested to be one of the major factors determining functional hemispheric asymmetries. Recently, it was shown that allelic variations in two myelin-related genes, the proteolipid protein 1 gene PLP1 and the contactin 1 gene CNTN1, are associated with differences in interhemispheric integration. Here, we investigated whether three single nucleotide polymorphisms that were associated with interhemispheric integration via the corpus callosum in a previous study also are relevant for functional hemispheric asymmetries. To this end, we tested more than 900 healthy adults with the forced attention dichotic listening task, a paradigm to assess language lateralization and its modulation by cognitive control processes. Moreover, we used the line bisection task, a paradigm to assess functional hemispheric asymmetries in spatial attention. We found that a polymorphism in PLP1, but not CNTN1, was associated with performance differences in both tasks. Both functional hemispheric asymmetries and their modulation by cognitive control processes were affected. These findings suggest that both left and right hemisphere dominant cognitive functions can be modulated by allelic variation in genes affecting corpus callosum structure. Moreover, higher order cognitive processes may be relevant parameters when investigating the molecular basis of hemispheric asymmetries.