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Biomedical subjects

M Urban

Publications and source records attributed to M Urban.

225 records · Page 13Linked to original sources
PubMedDate not supplied

New protocol in spotting microarray technique.

The "spotting" microarray technique, consisting in large sets of DNA sequences spotted on poly-L-lysine-coated glass microscope slides, has been developed to comparatively analyze genome-wide patterns of mRNA expression. It is now a valuable tool employed in order to quantitatively monitor gene expression profiles, as well as to analyze the alterations produced in case of genetic diseases, or induced by different treatments, abnormal nutrition and toxin. Our group improved the standard protocol as well as the results spreadsheet, adding new experiments and mathematical processing procedures in order to increase the accuracy of the data and get new information. In this contribution, we propose and verify two procedures to correct the spot ratios and a new protocol to get the normal variability of the digital gene expression.

Algorithms↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Activity of N-acetyl-beta-hexosaminidase and its isoenzymes in serum and synovial fluid from patients with different arthropathies.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the activity of N-acetyl-Beta-hexosaminidase (HEX) and its isoenzymes in the serum and synovial fluid of healthy volunteers and patients with an injury to the anterior cruciate ligament and/or meniscus (ACL) osteoarthritis (OA), juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA). METHODS: The activity of HEX and its isoenzymes was determined according to Zwierz et al. method. Protein content was determined by the biuret method. RESULTS: The specific activity of HEX and its isoenzymes in the serum of patients with JIA showed a tendency to increase in comparison to the reference group. The specific activity of total HEX in the serum of RA patients was significantly increased in comparison to control. Our results show, that specific activity of HEX in synovial fluid, in the reference group 4.2 +/- 0.21 microkat/kg protein (0.25 unit/mg protein), is similar to activity in normal temporomandibular joint fluid (0.3 unit/mg protein). Therefore, we included this group in our research. In patients with OA and ACL injuries, HEX and its isoenzymes showed a tendency to increase in the specific activity in synovial fluid. The specific activity of HEX and its isoenzymes in the synovial fluid of patients with RA and JIA was significantly elevated in comparison to the control and the remaining groups. CONCLUSION: In the synovial fluid of patients with JIA and RA, the specific activity of HEX and its isoenzymes significantly increased in comparison to control and patients with diseases of a non-inflammatory etiology (OA and ACL). In the synovial fluid of control and diseased groups, HEX constituted a higher percent of total proteins than in serum.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Assessment of the character and incidence of electrocardiographic changes in children with simple obesity.

The studied group comprised 82 children with simple obesity. In the group the character and frequency of ECG changes in 12 conventional leads were analyzed. A correlation was established between the character and frequency of these changes and the degree of overweight and obesity duration. In children with simple obesity a considerable prevalence was observed of disturbances of sinus rhythm, impairment of intraventricular conduction and signs of left ventricular hypertrophy. The observed changes were more frequent in children with over 5 years of obesity duration. No correlation was demonstrated between the incidence of these changes and the degree of overweight.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Composition of serum fatty acids in healthy children.

In 81 children aged 0-18 years with normal body weight the serum pattern of fatty acids (FA) were determined by means of gas chromatography. The results show that of the 11 FA determined chromatographically, unsaturated and saturated fatty acids had differences in their distribution in the plasma. A certain regularity of these differences in favour of unsaturated fatty acids was observed. At the same time it was demonstrated that the mean values of unsaturated essential fatty acids (EUFA) increased with the age of a child. These results suggest that the plasma FA pattern may be a valuable supplementary source of information about lipid metabolism disturbances in children.

Adolescent↗