The effect of age on the ability of oocytes to synthesize RNA and proteins during in vitro maturation

Summary The effect of age on the ability of the oocyte to resume meiosis in vitro and to incorporate ³H-uridine and ³H-leucine into RNA and protein, respectively, was examined in the rat. In comparison with the mature control oocyte, the nucleolus of the aged oocyte tends to be retained although the rate of germinal vesicle breakdown is not altered. The incorporation of ³H-uridine is reduced, while ³H-leucine incorporation is not impaired. It is concluded that the inability of the aged oocyte to synthesize RNA may be responsible for its inability to complete meiotic maturation in vitro.This work was supported in part by a grant from the Easter Seal Research Foundation of the National Easter Seal Society for Crippled Children and Adults     

A Bayesian spatiotemporal statistical analysis of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests

We propose a Bayesian spatiotemporal statistical model for predicting out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCAs). Risk maps for Ticino, adjusted for demographic covariates, are built for explaining and forecasting the spatial distribution of OHCAs and their temporal dynamics. The occurrence intensity of the OHCA event in each area of interest, and the cardiac risk-based clustering of municipalities are efficiently estimated, through a statistical model that decomposes OHCA intensity into overall intensity, demographic fixed effects, spatially structured and unstructured random effects, time polynomial dependence, and spatiotemporal random effect. In the studied geography, time evolution and dependence on demographic features are robust over different categories of OHCAs, but with variability in their spatial and spatiotemporal structure. Two main OHCA incidence-based clusters of municipalities are identified.     

Polyclonal antibodies against fusaproliferin.

Fusaproliferin (FP), a toxic metabolite of the world-wide maize pathogens Fusarium proliferatum and Fusarium subglutinans, was recently found to be a natural contaminant of maize. Its toxic activity on haematopoietic human cell lines and its teratogenic effects on chicken embryos has been recently proved. Therefore a sensitive, rapid, and inexpensive screening test to detect FP in agricultural commodities is necessary to protect human health. FP-hemiglutarate conjugated to modified bovine serum albumin was synthesized, characterized, and used as an antigen for raising polyclonal antibodies by immunizing rabbits. Indirect and competitive ELISA and immunoblotting analyses were performed to determine antibody specificity towards the mycotoxin. The determination of 10 micrograms of free FP/mL was achieved using antibodies purified by means of affinity chromatography on a FP-lysine-Sepharose column. This unsatisfactory detection limit is due to high background values; thus, this method is not competitive with traditional UV-HPLC methods.