Effect of cod liver oil supplementation on plasma lipids, lipoproteins, lipase activity and platelet aggregation in normotensive and hypertensive volunteers

No significant change in plasma levels of total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides, phospholipids, very-low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), lipase activity and TC/HDL-C ratio could be observed in both normotensive and hypertensive individuals after cod liver oil supplementation. Measure of platelet aggregation rates did not also show any significant change after cod liver oil ingestion in both normotensive and hypertensive individuals. The results suggest that supplementation of normal diets with 600 mg cod liver oil per day for 50 days neither affects plasma lipids, lipoproteins and lipase activity nor affects platelet aggregation in both normotensive and hypertensive individuals.     

Phylogeny of Greya (Lepidoptera: Prodoxidae), based on nucleotide sequence variation in mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I and II: congruence with morphological data

The phylogeny of Greya Busck (Lepidoptera: Prodoxidae) was inferred from nucleotide sequence variation across a 765-bp region in the cytochrome oxidase I and II genes of the mitochondrial genome. Most parsimonious relationships of 25 haplotypes from 16 Greya species and two outgroup genera (Tetragma and Prodoxus) showed substantial congruence with the species relationships indicated by morphological variation. Differences between mitochondrial and morphological trees were found primarily in the positions of two species, G. variabilis and G. pectinifera, and in the branching order of the three major species groups in the genus. Conflicts between the data sets were examined by comparing levels of homoplasy in characters supporting alternative hypotheses. The phylogeny of Greya species suggests that host-plant association at the family level and larval feeding mode are conservative characters. Transition/transversion ratios estimated by reconstruction of nucleotide substitutions on the phylogeny had a range of 2.0-9.3, when different subsets of the phylogeny were used. The decline of this ratio with the increase in maximum sequence divergence among taxa indicates that transitions are masked by transversions along deeper internodes or long branches of the phylogeny. Among transitions, substitutions of A-->G and T-->C outnumbered their reciprocal substitutions by 2-6 times, presumably because of the approximately 4:1 (77%) A+T-bias in nucleotide base composition. Of all transversions, 73%-80% were A<-->T substitutions, 85% of which occurred at third positions of codons; these estimates did not decrease with an increase in maximum sequence divergence of taxa included in the analysis. The high frequency of A<-->T substitutions is either a reflection or an explanation of the 92% A+T bias at third codon positions.