Antibodies against calcium-regulating hormones in infectious-allergic forms of bronchial asthma

Antibodies to calcitonin, parathyroid hormone and cortisol are detected in acute stage of infection-caused bronchial asthma. The appearance of antibodies is paralleled by marked hypercalcaemia. The antibodies may bind excessive hormones in the blood, preventing further hormonal imbalance. Ten-day treatment with glucocorticoids decreased the amount of antibodies possibly due to normalization of hormonal secretion and restoration of their balance. As a result, calcium blood levels returned to normal.     

Lipid content of terrestrial arthropods in relation to body size,phylogeny, ontogeny and sex

Energy storage in arthropods has important implications for survival and reproduction. The lipid content of 276 species of adult arthropods with wet mass in the range 0.2–6.13 g is determined to assess how lipid mass scales with body mass. The relative contribution of lipids to total body mass is investigated with respect to phylogeny, ontogeny and sex. The lipid content of adult insects, arachnids, and arthropods in general shows an isometric scaling relationship with respect to body mass (M) (M_{arthropod lipid} = ?1.09 ×M_dry^1.01 and M_{arthropod lipid} = ?1.00 ×M_lean^0.98). However, lipid allocation varies between arthropod taxa, as well as with sex and developmental stage within arthropod taxa. Female insects and arachnids generally have higher lipid contents than males, and larval holometabolous insects and juvenile arachnids have higher lipid contents than adults.     

Comparison of the effects of smooth and skeletal tropomyosin on skeletal actomyosin subfragment 1 ATPase

Chicken gizzard tropomyosin, like rabbit skeletal tropomyosin, inhibits and activates skeletal actomyosin subfragment 1 ATPase at low and high [subfragment 1], respectively, showing that both smooth and skeletal tropomyosin qualitatively produce similar cooperative effects on activity. For gizzard tropomyosin, however, the extent of the inhibition was less, and the activation curve rose more sharply at lower [subfragment 1]. In terms of a two-state cooperative activity model for the actin-tropomyosin filament (Hill, T. L., Eisenberg, E., and Chalovich, J. (1981) Biophys. J. 35, 99-112), these results qualitatively suggest that, for the gizzard tropomyosin system, more units are initially in the active state (in the absence of subfragment 1) and that the switching of units to the active state is more cooperative. The greater cooperativity indicated for the gizzard system may be a consequence of the greater rigidity of gizzard tropomyosin indicated from conformational studies.     

The effect of water activity and pH on the production of mycotoxins by fungi growing on a bread analogue

Mycotoxin production by various toxigenic fungi, growing on a bread analogue, was investigated at various water activities (a_w) and pH combinations. Citrinin, ochratoxin A and sterigmatocystin could be detected at a_w > 0·80, while patulin was only observed at a_w= 0·95. These results show that some toxins may be produced at lower water activities than have been reported on synthetic media and suggest that, where possible, natural substrates should be used to investigate factors affect-ing mycotoxin production in foodstuffs.