Dietary administration of EDC mixtures: A focus on fish lipid metabolism

Many man-made chemical compounds are recognized as endocrine disruptors and once released into the environment are likely to spread and bioaccumulate in wild species. Due to their lipophilic nature, these substances pass through the cell membrane or bind to specific receptors activating physiological responses that in the long run can cause reproductive impairment, physiological disorders, including the occurrence of metabolic syndromes. One significant source of contamination is represented by the consumption of polluted food. As a consequence, different environmental pollutants, with similar or different modes of action, can accumulate in organisms and biomagnify along the food web, finally targeting humans. The aim of this study was to analyze, under controlled conditions, the effects induced by the consumption of contaminated diets, focusing on the effects exerted at hepatic level. Juvenile seabream were fed for 21days a diet enriched with different combinations of pollutants, nonylphenol (NP), tert-octylphenol (t-OP) and bisphenol A (BPA). The different diets containing 5mg/kg bw of each contaminant, were formulated as follows: NP+tOP, BPA+NP, BPA+tOP and NP+BPA+tOP (NBO). EDCs, at the doses administered, showed low biomagnification factor (BMF), suggesting that these pollutants hardly accumulate in muscles. The results obtained at hepatic level pinpointed the steatotic effect of all the administered diets, associated to a modulation of the expression of genes involved in lipid metabolism (ppars, fas, lpl, and hsl). Results were compared to those obtained in previous studies in which fish were fed single pollutants evidencing that the administration of mixture of contaminants exerts a milder lipogenic effect, highlighting the contrasting/antagonistic interaction establishing among chemicals. Noteworthy was the setup of a new chromatographic method to detect the presence of the selected chemical in fish muscle and the application of Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR) analysis to evaluate pollutant-induced changes in the liver macromolecular building.

A comparison of techniques for studying oogenesis in the European eel Anguilla anguilla

A multi-technique approach was used to study the changes occurring in European eel Anguilla anguilla ovaries during hormonally-induced vitellogenesis. Aside from classic techniques used to monitor the vitellogenic process, such as ovary histology, fat content analysis, sodium dodecyl sulphate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) and vitellogenin enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), a new technique, Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR) microspectroscopy, was used to analyse A. anguilla ovaries. The results from the different techniques provided different ways of approaching the same process. Although it is considered a time consuming approach, of all the employed techniques, histology provided the most direct evidences about vitellogenesis. SDS-PAGE and ELISA were also useful for studying vitellogenesis, whereas fat analysis cannot be used for this purpose. The FT-IR analysis provided a representative IR spectrum for each ovarian stage (previtellogenic stage, early vitellogenic stage, mid-vitellogenic stage and late vitellogenic stage), demonstrating that it is a valid method able to illustrate the distribution of the oocytes within the ovary slices. The chemical maps obtained confirmed changes in lipid concentrations and revealed their distribution within the oocytes at different maturational stages. When the results and the accuracy of the FT-IR analysis were compared with those of the traditional techniques commonly used to establish the vitellogenic stage, it became evident that FT-IR is a useful and reliable tool, with many advantages, including the fact that it requires little biological material, the costs involved are low, analysis times are short and last but not least, the fact that it offers the possibility of simultaneously analysing various biocomponents of the same oocyte.

Study of oral cavity lesions by infrared spectroscopy

Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) microspectroscopy is considered a useful tool in the biomedical field, for analysing in situ and at cellular level, very small areas of tissues and cells, with minimal sample preparation and without the use of stains or probes. This spectroscopic technique has been successfully applied to analyse biological samples from patients affected by tumoral pathologies, with particular attention to oral cavity lesions. In this study, we describe the application of FTIR microspectroscopy to characterize and discriminate the most recurrent benign and malignant diseases of oral cavity compartment. Infrared maps were acquired on tissues affected by the following pathologies: squamous cell carcinoma, adenoid cystic carcinoma, polymorphous low-grade adenocarcinoma, squamous dysplasia, keratocystic odontogenic tumor, radicular cyst, residual cyst, unicystic ameloblastoma, and ameloblastic fibroma, together with healthy tissue samples (used as control group). The epithelial and connective components of all samples were distinguished and submitted to multivariate analysis. The results were in agreement with histological suggestions.

Histological and microscopy FT-IR imaging study on the proliferative activity and angiogenesis in head and neck tumours

Micro Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy enables one to study small samples because of the high quality spectra that can be obtained. Biochemical and morphological changes between control and pathological tissues of head and neck tumours have been monitored drawing three-dimensional chemical maps of the main vibrational modes in the regions of interest. Comparison between spectral and histological data shows a satisfactory degree of accordance. Among all, proliferating and regressive states of the tumours can be identified.

Reactivity of ubiquinones and ubiquinols with free radicals

The reactivity of quinones 1-4 and of the corresponding quinols 5-8 towards carbon- and oxygen-centred radicals were studied. All quinones bearing at least one nuclear position free, readily react with alkyl and phenyl radicals to afford the alkylated quinones 12-24; however, quinones 1 and 3 reacted with 2-cyano-2-propyl radical to yield products (the mono- and di-ethers 9-11) derived from the attack on the carbonylic oxygen. The reactions carried out on quinones with the benzoyloxy radical led to no reaction products and in the case of Q10, the isoprenic chain also remained unchanged. Quinols 5-8 reacted only with oxygen-centred radicals (benzoyloxy and 2-cyano-2-propyl-peroxy radicals) to give the corresponding quinones. The isoprenic chain of Q10 did not undergo attack even with peroxy radicals. Carbon-centred radicals resulted unable to abstract hydrogen from the studied quinols.

The use of sweet rolls fortified with iron bis-glycinate chelate in the prevention of iron deficiency anemia in preschool children

The effectiveness of bread fortified with iron bis-glycinate chelate for the control of iron deficiency and iron deficiency anemia was evaluated in 89 preschool children from families of low socioeconomic level attending 2 day nurseries of the Sao Paulo City Council. During the intervention's time of 6 months the children received besides their usual center's diet, a daily supplement of two sweet rolls fortified with 2 mg each of iron from the chelate for a total daily iron intake of 4 mg. After six months of intervention there was a significant decrease in the prevalence of iron deficiency anemia from 62 to 22%. There was a mean hemoglobin improvement of 1.1 g/dL, and in children with initial hemoglobin levels < 11 g/dL the mean increase in hemoglobin was 1.42 g/dL. The total mean plasma ferritin values increased from 11.34 to 20.2 micrograms/L, and in those children originally iron depleted the ferritin values normalized. A significant increase in the "z" score for weight/height was also observed. We concluded that the use of sweet rolls fortified with 2 mg of iron from the bis-glycinate chelate is highly effective for the control of iron deficiency and iron deficiency anemia in young children.