Surgical treatment of extensive hemangiomas of the liver

The results of treatment of 7 patients with extensive hepatic hemangiomas are analysed. In 6 patients the diagnosis was established before the operation. The liver was resected in 4 patients. One patients with malignant degeneration of the hemangioma was inoperable, in another the hemangioma was not removed because of his old age, and still in another because the process had spread. The authors conclude that in large hemangiomas of the liver in young and middle-aged patients resection of the organ is indicated, especially if there is a destruction cavity and a rapid growth of hemangioma. The operation is not indicated in capillary, surface hemangiomas of a small size, old age of the patient, extension of the process in to the main vascular structures of the other hepatic lobe.     

The influence of piracetam on the effects of narcotic analgesics

In experiments on white male mice there was studied the influence of piracetam (250-300 mg/kg) on the analgesic effect of ligands of different types of opioid receptors (morphine, 7.5 mg/kg, DADLE, 7.5 mg/kg, pentazocine, 15 mg/kg) and also on the action of morphine concerning the cardiovascular system and respiration. Piracetam was shown to possess the antagonistic properties with respect to some effects of morphine, however they are not of the universal character and do not depend on the interaction with a certain type of opioid receptors.     

A comparative study of the nootropic properties of piracetam and oxiracetam]

The behavioral activities of piracetam and oxiracetam were studied during the learning tests (active avoidance, passive avoidance, T-maize). The levels of the orientation reaction and emotionality of the animals were determined by the "open field" method. To achieve similar effects, injections of 10 mg/kg of oxiracetam and 100 mg/kg of piracetam intraperitoneally were required. Both nootropics facilitated the learning of the animals but failed to change their behavior in the open field. Piracetam was more effective in the active avoidance test and oxiracetam in the T-maize test. The data indicate some differences in the activities of piracetam and oxiracetam.     

Angiogenesis is an early event in the development of chemically induced skin tumors

In this study we have analyzed the vascular response induced in the two- stage carcinogenesis model in SENCAR mice. The role of angiogenesis has not been explored in this model, which is the paradigm of multistage carcinogenesis and a model for neoplastic lesions derived from exophytic premalignant lesions (e.g. colon carcinoma, bladder papilloma). We investigated if angiogenesis is involved in the formation of papillomas and in the progression from papilloma to carcinoma. To this end we analyzed the vasculature of normal and hyperplastic skin, focal epidermal hyperplasias that are precursors of papillomas, papillomas at different stages and squamous cell carcinomas. We also analyzed the vascularization of papillomas induced in two strains of mice that differ in their susceptibility to malignant progression. We show here that angiogenesis is turned on in the earliest stages of papilloma formation. In late stages, regardless of state of progression, the predominant response is an increase in the size of blood vessels. Thus, in the SENCAR mouse model, representative of exophytic tumors, the angiogenesis switch is a very early event, probably mechanistically related to the development of the primarily exophytic lesions. Therefore, the density of blood vessels cannot be used as a predictor of malignant progression in this model.      

Aptamer BC 007’s Affinity to Specific and Less-Specific Anti-SARS-CoV-2 Neutralizing Antibodies

COVID-19 is a pandemic respiratory disease that is caused by the highly infectious severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies are essential weapons that a patient with COVID-19 has to combat the disease. When now repurposing a drug, namely an aptamer that interacts with SARS-CoV-2 proteins for COVID-19 treatment (BC 007), which is, however, a neutralizer of pathogenic autoantibodies in its original indication, the possibility of also binding and neutralizing anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies must be considered. Here, the highly specific virus-neutralizing antibodies have to be distinguished from the ones that also show cross-reactivity to tissues. The last-mentioned could be the origin of the widely reported SARS-CoV-2-induced autoimmunity, which should also become a target of therapy. We, therefore, used enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) technology to assess the binding of well-characterized publicly accessible anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies (CV07-209 and CV07-270) with BC 007. Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, isothermal calorimetric titration, and circular dichroism spectroscopy were additionally used to test the binding of BC 007 to DNA-binding sequence segments of these antibodies. BC 007 did not bind to the highly specific neutralizing anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody but did bind to the less specific one. This, however, was a lot less compared to an autoantibody of its original indication (14.2%, range 11.0–21.5%). It was also interesting to see that the less-specific anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody also showed a high background signal in the ELISA (binding on NeutrAvidin-coated or activated but noncoated plastic plate). These initial experiments suggest that the risk of binding and neutralizing highly specific anti-SARS CoV-2 antibodies by BC 007 should be low.     

Supramolecular D⋯A-layered structures based on germanium complexes with 2,3-dihydroxynaphthalene and N,N′-bidentate ligands

The concept of using redox-active ligands, which has become extremely widespread in organometallic chemistry, is often considered from ‘their effect on the metal center properties’ point of view and ‘how to modify the ligands’. In this paper, we present the reverse side of this effective approach – a dramatic change of redox properties of ligands under the influence of a redox-inert metal. Germanium derivatives based on 2,3-dihydroxynaphthalene (1) and N,N′-bidentate ligands, namely 2,2′-bipyridine (2) and 1,10-phenanthroline (3), were obtained and characterized by CV, UV-vis spectroscopy, DFT calculations and in the case of 3 X-ray diffraction. It was shown that the HOMO of the complexes is almost completely located on the naphthalene fragment while the LUMO is on the N,N-ligands. At the same time, there are no boundary molecular orbitals on the germanium atom, but it forms the axial part of the molecule holding two opposite motifs together. Moreover, it sharply affects the level of HOMO and LUMO. Derivatives 2 and 3 are more easily oxidized compared to 2,3-dihydroxynaphthalene by 0.31–0.34 V (7–8 kcal mol⁻¹) and are more easily reduced compared to N,N-donors by 1.08–1.15 V (25–26.5 kcal mol⁻¹). All this together makes it possible to form a system with a narrow HOMO/LUMO gap (∼2 eV). The crystal structure of 3 consists of alternating monomolecular easily oxidizing and easily reducing layers formed due to intermolecular interactions, in particular π-stacking. In addition, in contrast to 1 that starts to decompose noticeably at the temperatures from 200 °C, 2 and 3 have an extremely high thermal stability. They remain stable with no signs of decomposition and melting up to 400 °С. We believe that this approach to the formation of the supramolecular structure may present prospects for obtaining new functional materials.

The concept of using redox-active ligands is often considered from ‘their effect on the metal center properties’ point of view. We present the reverse side of this approach – change of redox properties of ligands under the influence of metal.