Murine peritoneal macrophages, elicited with thioglycollate, were stimulated in vitro with lipopolysaccharide (LPS). The production of nitrite, superoxide anion (SOA), and the accumulation of ...nitrotyrosine in the cells increased after treatment, and all were inhibitable by the NO synthase inhibitor NG‐monomethyl‐
l‐arginine monoacetate (
l‐NMMA). This effect suggests a direct correlation between the accumulation of those metabolites and NO synthase activity. Lipoarabinomannan (LAM) purified from Mycobacterium tuberculosis was added to peritoneal macrophages in the presence of interferon‐gamma (IFN‐γ); the cells produced nitrite and SOA, both inhibitable by
l‐NMMA. There was, as well, accumulation of nitrotyrosine in the macrophage proteins. Strikingly, the amount of nitrotyrosine measured after LAM plus IFN‐γ, or LAM plus the low molecular weight adjuvant glutamylmuramyl dipeptide (GMDP), increased significantly in the presence of
l‐NMMA. These results suggest that murine macrophages, upon LAM stimulation, might generate reactive nitrogen metabolites by a route other than NO synthase. Nitrotyrosine accumulation after infection of macrophages in vitro, with either live bacille Calmette–Guérin (BCG) or live M. tuberculosis, in the presence or absence of IFN‐γ, showed no correlation with nitrite production, suggesting a low superoxide production.
Antioxidative capacity of tomato products PODSEDEK, Anna; SOSNOWSKA, Dorota; ANDERS, Barbara
European food research & technology,
10/2003, Letnik:
217, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The antioxidative capacity of methanol/water and hexane extracts of five tomato juices, four canned tomatoes and four tomato pastes was measured using two test systems: with ...2,2'-azinobis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) radical cation (ABTS^sup --+^) and with linoleic acid emulsion. In both the ABTS assay and the linoleic acid system, most of the antioxidative capacity of analysed products was from the methanol-water fraction, which contained polyphenols and ascorbic acid. On the basis of the wet weight of the tomato products, tomato pastes had the highest activity towards ABTS^sup --+^ (micromoles of Trolox equivalents per gram) followed by tomato juices, and canned tomatoes. The inhibition of formation of thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances in the linoleic acid emulsion was strongly dependent on antioxidant concentration. The results suggest that tomato products, in addition to fresh tomatoes, may also be important in supplying dietary antioxidant, especially polyphenols and carotenoids.PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
Context. The ESPRI project relies on the astrometric capabilities offered by the PRIMA facility of the Very Large Telescope Interferometer for discovering and studying planetary systems. Our survey ...consists of obtaining high-precision astrometry for a large sample of stars over several years to detect their barycentric motions due to orbiting planets. We present the operation’s principle, the instrument’s implementation, and the results of a first series of test observations. Aims. We give a comprehensive overview of the instrument infrastructure and present the observation strategy for dual-field relative astrometry in the infrared K-band. We describe the differential delay lines, a key component of the PRIMA facility that was delivered by the ESPRI consortium, and discuss their performance within the facility. This paper serves as reference for future ESPRI publications and for the users of the PRIMA facility. Methods. Observations of bright visual binaries were used to test the observation procedures and to establish the instrument’s astrometric precision and accuracy. The data reduction strategy for the astrometry and the necessary corrections to the raw data are presented. Adaptive optics observations with NACO were used as an independent verification of PRIMA astrometric observations. Results. The PRIMA facility was used to carry out tests of astrometric observations. The astrometric performance in terms of precision is limited by the atmospheric turbulence at a level close to the theoretical expectations and a precision of 30 μas was achieved. In contrast, the astrometric accuracy is insufficient for the goals of the ESPRI project and is currently limited by systematic errors that originate in the part of the interferometer beamtrain that is not monitored by the internal metrology system. Conclusions. Our observations led to defining corrective actions required to make the facility ready for carrying out the ESPRI search for extrasolar planets.
Laboratory assays have been carried out to artificially infect insect larvae of the birch bark-beetle (
Scolytus ratzeburgi Jans.—Coleoptera, Scolytidae) and codling moth
Cydia pomonella L. ...—Lepidoptera, Tortricidae) as well as the potato cyst nematode—
Globodera rostochiensis Wollenweber, sugar beet nematode—
Heterodera schachtii Schmidt and root-knot nematode—
Meloidogyne hapla Chif (Nematoda, Heteroderidae), by the phialoconidia of some fungal species of the genus
Hirsutella. From among four species tested on insects only
H. nodulosa Petch infected about 20% of
S. ratzeburgi larvae, whereas
H. kirchneri (Rostrup) Minter, Brady et Hall,
H. minnesotensis Chen, Liu et Chen, and
H. rostrata Bałazy et Wiśniewski did not affect insect larvae. Only single eggs of the root-knot nematode were infected by
H. minnesotensis in the laboratory trials, whereas its larvae remained unaffected. No infection cases of the potato cyst nematode (
G. rostochiensis) and sugar beet nematode eggs were obtained. Comparisons of DNA-ITS-region sequences of the investigated strains with GenBank data showed no differences between
H. minnesotensis isolates from the nematodes
Heterodera glycines Ichinohe and from tarsonemid mites (authors’ isolate). A fragment of ITS 2 with the sequence characteristic only for
H. minnesotensis was selected. Two cluster analyses indicated close similarity of this species to
H. thompsonii as sister clades, but the latter appeared more heterogenous. Insect and mite pathogenic species
H. nodulosa localizes close to specialized aphid pathogen
H. aphidis, whereas the phytophagous mite pathogens
H. kirchneri and
H. gregis form a separate sister clade.
Hirsutella rostrata does not show remarkable relations to the establishment of aforementioned groups. Interrelated considerations on the morphology, biology and DNA sequencing of investigated
Hirsutella species state their identification more precisely and facilitate the establishment of systematic positions.
In this paper, we present our HARPS radial-velocity data for eight low-activity solar-type stars belonging to the HARPS volume-limited sample: HD 6718, HD 8535, HD 28254, HD 290327, HD 43197, HD ...44219, HD 148156, and HD 156411. Keplerian fits to these data reveal the presence of low-mass companions around these targets. With minimum masses ranging from 0.58 to 2.54 MJup, these companions are in the planetary mass domain. The orbital periods of these planets range from slightly less than one to almost seven years. The eight orbits presented in this paper exhibit a wide variety of eccentricities: from 0.08 to above 0.8.
Arising from: J. M. Matthews et al. Nature 430, 51-53 (2004)Stars are spheres of hot gas whose interiors transmit acoustic waves very efficiently. Geologists learn about the interior structure of ...Earth by monitoring how seismic waves propagate through it and, in a similar way, the interior of a star can be probed using the periodic motions on the surface that arise from such waves. Matthews et al. claim that the star Procyon does not have acoustic surface oscillations of the strength predicted. However, we show here, using ground-based spectroscopy, that Procyon is oscillating, albeit with an amplitude that is only slightly greater than the noise level observed by Matthews et al. using spaced-based photometry.
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