Biomarker profiles in serum and saliva of experimental Sj?gren's syndrome: associations with specific autoimmune manifestations

Introduction  

Sj?gren's syndrome (SS) is a systemic autoimmune disease that mainly targets the exocrine glands. The aim of this study was to investigate the involvement of 87 proteins measured in serum and 75 proteins analyzed in saliva in spontaneous experimental SS. In addition, we intended to compute a model of the immunological situation representing the overt disease stage of SS.     

Molecular diagnosis of Duchenne and Becker muscular dystrophies. Current data

Carrier diagnosis and prenatal diagnosis of Duchenne's muscular dystrophy (DMD) and Becker's muscular dystrophy (BMD) has become possible using some twenty RFLPs detected by more than a dozen Xp21 probes that are either intragenic or flanking the disease locus. Results from familial studies on 88 DMD and BM families stress important considerations concerning a priori and final risks, individuals necessary for the identification of the phase, and the different strategies that can be applied, regardless of whether the study concerns an on-going pregnancy or a carrier-status determination, and whether the patient is at high or low risk. Finally, multiple sources of difficulties in interpreting the results depend on a) the occurrence of new mutations that must be traced; b) the existence of meiotic recombination; c) the necessity, in some instances, of relying upon the sole identification of the paternal X. These considerations emphasize the characteristics and the important limitations of this type of methodology.     

Membrane-damaging action of ricin on DPPC and DPPC-cerebrosides assemblies

Perturbations induced by a toxic lectin (ricin) on lipid organisation of model membranes prepared with DPPC and DPPC-cerebrosides mixtures have been analysed by Raman and infrared spectroscopy, two powerful and non-invasive methods. Our approach involves the observation of changes in the vibrational spectra of liquid multilayers in the PO ₂ ^- , C=0 and CH₂ spectral regions for two lipid: ricin molar ratios (225:1, 75:1).The interfacial and polar regions of the multilayers, analysed by FTIR, appear to be perturbed by the protein. With both kinds of membranes, ricin mainly perturbs the C=0 ester groups of the sn-2 acylchain of DPPC. In the PO ₂ ^- stretching region, the frequency shifts are correlated with changes in polar group hydration.In the hydrophobic core of the multilayer membrane studied by Raman spectroscopy, the interaction of ricin is associated with changes in lipid packing. These perturbations depend upon the lipid composition of the membrane. With DPPC membranes, an affect is detected at temperatures lower than T _m .It corresponds to a decrease of the lipid ordering. With DPPC-cer membranes, the protein increases the acylchain packing order regardless of the temperature of the experiments (10°C<T<75°C). No perturbation of T _m is observed after addition of ricin to either DPPC or DPPC-cer membranes.The different perturbations detected by Raman and FTIR suggest that ricin mainly interacts with the interfacial domains of the membranes.     

Changes in the cellular permeability of the embryonic axis inGcer arietinum L. seeds during germination

The effect of short chain fatty acids on the cellular permeability of embryonic axis inGcer arietinum seeds was studied. Octanoic (OCT) and nonanoic (NON) adds, which reduce both germination and growth of the embryonic axis and raise the inhibitor effects of the supraoptimal temperatures (30?C), induce a greater ionic efflux into the medium (conductivity). NON reduces glucose (3-0-MG) and K⁺ (⁸⁶Rb) uptake during the germinative process, this action being counteracted by fusicoccin (FC) at optimal (25?C) and supraoptimal temperatures (30 ?C). Tonoplast and plasmalemma increase their permeability to the K⁺ efflux when NON is present. Addition of NON+FC gives rise to higher values in the efflux rate, the vacuolar compartment being the most affected. Temperatures around zero (2 ?C) notably reduce the isotope efflux from cytosol and vacuole. NON acid does not significantly affect the efflux of³H-ABA, suggesting that it does not cause any important changes in the phytohormone compartmentation.     

Effects of alginates and sodium carrageenates mixed with soy proteins on the coefficient of protein efficiency

Male 21 d-old Wistar rats, were fed for 4 wk with diets containing casein or soybean proteins (10%) with 0.5, 1, 2 or 3% sodium alginate or sodium carrageenan or without any alginate or carrageenan. Daily protein intake and weight gain of casein-fed rats were not significantly different (P less than 0.05) from those of rats fed soybean meal with alginate, whatever the dose received. Rats fed 3% carrageenan in soybean meal had significantly higher feed intake than that of rats fed casein. At the levels studied, alginate had no effect on the Protein Efficiency Ratio (PER), but carrageenan did. The addition of increased quantities of carrageenan to soybean meal followed by heating the mixture led to a progressive and significant decrease in PER at all levels of carrageenan compared to casein feeding. The addition of 3% carrageenan to heated soybean meal, corresponding to 0.62% of meal diet, led to a significant decrease in PER. These results confirm the precipitating role of carrageenans on proteins.