Whoever wishes to investigate medicine properly should proceed thus: in the first place to consider the seasons of the year. ~ Hippocrates, the father of medicine (circa 400 B.C.).

Dendrite morphology regulates how a postsynaptic neuron receives information from presynaptic neurons. The specific patterning of dendrite branches is promoted by extrinsic and intrinsic factors that trigger the activation of functional signaling pathways. However, only a handful of the regulatory factors and biochemical mechanisms involved in determining dendrite morphology are known. The Firestein laboratory previously reported that cypin (cytosolic PSD-95 interactor), the mammalian guanine deaminase (GDA), plays an active role in regulating dendrite branching in hippocampal neurons. Cypin-promoted increases in dendrite number are dependent on binding of zinc ions to cypin and cypin’s guanine deaminase activity. This work focuses on the identification of specific structural properties of cypin that lead to the multifunctional roles in guanine metabolism and dendrite iii development. We first employed phylogenetic analysis and computational structure modeling techniques to construct a three dimensional structural model

Copyright © 2011 Barbara Tavazzi et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a progressive demyelinating process considered as an autoimmune disease, although the causes of this pathology have not been yet fully established. Similarly to other neurodegenerations, MS is characterized by a series of biochemical changes affecting to different extent neuronal functions; great attention has been given to oxidative/nitrosative stress and to alterations in mitochondrial functions. According to previous data, MS patients show significant changes in the circulating concentrations of different metabolites, although it is still unclear whether uric acid undergoes to decrease, increase, or no change under this pathological condition. In this study, we report the serum metabolic profile in terms of purines, pyrimidines, creatinine, malondialdehyde, ascorbic acid, nitrite, and nitrate in a group of 170 MS patients. The results show increase in circulating uric acid and other oxypurines (hypoxanthine and xanthine), as well as in uridine and β-pseudouridine. The concomitant increase in circulating creatinine, malondialdehyde, nitrite, and nitrate, and decrease in ascorbic acid, demonstrates that MS induces alteration

Protective role of alcoholic extract of black currant (Vitis Vinifera L.) on renal function of adult male rats exposed to methionine overload and hydrogen peroxide

Copyright © 2013 Liridon Berisha et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Tin (IV) oxide was used as a bulk mediator in carbon paste and carbon ink screen-printed electrodes to improve the better performance of the carbon electrodes for the detection of hydrogen peroxide in comparison with unmodified electrodes. A new glucose biosensor developed from modified carbon paste electrode and coated with glucose oxidase entrapped in Nafion was investigated with a flow injection system. The biosensor could be operated under physiological conditions (pH 7.5, 0.1 M phosphate buffer), with an operating potential of −200 mV (vs. Ag/AgCl), a flow rate of the carrier of 0.2 mL/min. and an injection volume of 100 μL. The amperometric response of the biosensor showed good linearity up to 200 mg/L with a detection limit (3σ) of 6.8 mg/L. The relative standard deviation for the repeatability of measurements for 100 mg/L glucose was 2.9 % (n = 10 measurements) and the corresponding reproducibility was 12% (n = 5 sensors). The effect of all investigated interferences (uric acid, paracetamol, xanthine, hypoxanthine and ascorbic acid) was not fatal and could be eliminated by the use of the standard addition method. The new biosensor was suc-cessfully applied to the determination of glucose in human blood plasma.