A competitive protein binding assay for allopurinol and oxipurinol

A competitive protein binding assay for allopurinol or oxipurinol has been developed based on the tight binding of these drugs to reduced xanthine oxidase. Free drug is separated from that bound to xanthine oxidase by absorption with dextran-albumin coated charcoal. This assay can detect as little as 0.1 μm allopurinol or oxipurinol in water, serum, plasma, or urine. Competitive analogs such as hypoxanthine, xanthine, and uric acid require concentrations 100- to 1000-fold greater than those of allopurinol or oxipurinol to cause significant interference with the assay. This assay is simple and rapid with the ability to assay 20–30 samples within 2 h. Measurement of oxipurinol levels in clinical samples shows good correlation with published results using more complex analytical techniques.     

The attitudes of riparian communities to the presence of water hyacinth in the Wouri River Basin,Douala, Cameroon

Since publication of the first record of Eichhornia crassipes in Cameroon in 1997, the weed has become highly invasive in the Wouri River Basin. Between June and September 2014, a socio-economic survey using participatory and qualitative methods was undertaken in the riparian villages of the Wouri River Basin to assess the perception of respondents to the presence of water hyacinth. The survey revealed that water hyacinth was a significant threat to activities along the river, which included fishing, sand extraction and river transportation. The presence of water hyacinth mats reduced catch rates of several common fish species, river transportation by 75%, and significantly reduced the income for sand extraction. Cameroon employs manual clearing of water hyacinth; however, respondents indicated they would consider other control methods, provided they do not have any negative impacts.     

Chinese hamster telomeres are comparable in size to mouse telomeres.

We report here the results of a telomere length analysis in four male Chinese hamsters by quantitative fluorescence in situ hybridization (Q-FISH). We were able to measure telomere length of 64 (73%) of 88 Chinese hamster telomeres. We could not measure telomere length in chromosome 10 or in the short arms of chromosomes 5, 6, 7 and 8 because of the overlaps between the interstitial and terminal telomeric signals. Our analysis in the 73% of Chinese hamster telomeres indicate that their average length is approximately 38 kb. Therefore, Chinese hamster telomeres are comparable in length to mouse telomeres, but are much longer than human telomeres. Similar to previous Q-FISH studies on human and mouse chromosomes, our results indicate that individual Chinese hamster chromosomes may have specific telomere lengths, suggesting that chromosome-specific factors may be involved in telomere length regulation.