Curcumin Reduces Burn Progression in Rats

Objectives Cutaneous burns are dynamic injuries with a central zone of necrosis surrounded by a zone of ischemia. Conversion of this ischemic zone to full necrosis over the days following injury is due in part to highly reactive oxygen radicals. Curcumin is a component of the Oriental spice turmeric that has been shown to have antioxidant and antiapoptotic properties. The authors hypothesized that treatment of burns with curcumin would reduce the conversion of the ischemic zone to full necrosis. Methods This was a randomized controlled experiment. Twenty Sprague‐Dawley rats were used. Two burns were created on each animal's dorsum using a brass comb with four rectangular prongs preheated in boiling water and applied for 30 seconds, resulting in four rectangular 10 × 20–mm full‐thickness burns separated by three 5 × 20–mm unburned interspaces (zone of ischemia). Animals were randomized to curcumin or vehicle by oral gavage 30 minutes before injury and at 24, 48, and 72 hours after injury. Wounds were observed at one, two, and three days after injury for visual evidence of necrosis in the unburned interspaces. Full‐thickness biopsy specimens from the interspaces were evaluated with hematoxylin and eosin staining seven days after injury for evidence of necrosis. The percentage of interspaces that progressed to necrosis was compared with chi‐square tests. Results Forty comb burns with 120 unburned interspaces were created, evenly distributed between curcumin and vehicle alone. The percentage of interspaces that progressed to full‐thickness necrosis at one, two, three, and seven days after injury in the curcumin and vehicle groups were 30% versus 63% (p = 0.003), 30% versus 70% (p < 0.001), 63% versus 95% (p = 0.02), and 63% versus 95% (p = 0.02), respectively. Conclusions Pretreatment of rats with oral curcumin followed by once‐daily oral treatment for three days reduced the percentage of unburned skin interspaces that progressed to full necrosis.     

Familial bullous disease of the lungs as a cause of spontaneous pneumothorax

Problems of surgical treatment of familial spontaneous pneumothorax, which is a manifestation of a hereditary form of bullous disease of the lungs, are discussed. Study of 2 families showed that the disease is inherited according to the autosome-dominant type with incomplete penetrance and/or variation expressivity. Operation was performed on 5 of 9 patients. Bullectomy and pleurodesis by means of parietal pleurectomy were conducted. Follow-up for periods of 1 to 27 years showed surgical treatment to be effective.     

Fractionation of a chalone-containing preparation from Ehrlich's ascites tumor by high performance liquid chromatography

Department of Biology, Medico-Biological Faculty, and Applied Research Laboratory of Ecology, Toxicology, and Metabolism of Medicinal Preparations, attached to the Department of Biochemistry, Medico-Biological Faculty, N. I. Pirogov Second Moscow Medical Institute. Translated from Byulleten' Éksperimental'noi Biologii i Meditsiny, Vol. 112, No. 10, pp. 418–419, October, 1991.     

Clinico-anatomical basis for using the variants of proximal gastric vagotomy in the treatment of gastroduodenal ulcers

Anatomical examinations (33 cadavers) for studying parasympathetic innervation of the upper abdominal organs formed the basis for developing a new variant of proximal gastric vagotomy--anterior seromyotomy of the body and fundus of the stomach in combination with posterior truncal or posterior selective vagotomy. This variant excludes mobilization of the esophagus and makes it possible to preserve the ligament apparatus of the esophago-gastric junction as well as the parasympathetic innervation of the pancreas, small and large intestine, kidneys, and adrenals, which may be a measure for the prevention of some ++post-vagotomy complications.     

Modelling of ion channel properties and study of channel role in the formation of impulse activity of the neuron

The electron analogue of a neuron working in real time scale is suggested. The sequence of signals' transformation in this analogue is in line with synaptic, postsynaptic membrane and somatic processes. Data on the synapse as on a "key" and on the postsynaptic membrane as on the ion channel with conductivity changed under the influence of a mediator and intracellular potential permit making the neuron analog on the basis of the pulse generator with the possibility to reproduce the synaptic apparatus activity and the neuronal dendrites' structure. The processes of the impulse flow transformation characteristic for neurons of different types, for example motoneurons and Renshow cells are modelled by changing the parameters of the membrane resistance and capacity. The study of simple networks has shown possible to use the suggested analogues for investigating principles of neuronal structure organizations and mechanisms of neuronal interactions, particularly in the motor control system.     

Integration of the cytogenetic and physical maps of chicken chromosome 17

The chicken genome, like those of most avian species, contains numerous microchromosomes that cannot be distinguished by size alone. Unique properties attributed to the microchromosomes include high GC content and gene density, and an enhanced recombination rate. Previously, microchromosome GGA 17 was shown to align with the consensus genetic linkage group E41W17, and bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) clones containing E41W17 markers were isolated and assigned on the physical BAC map as well as the recently assembled draft chicken genome sequence. For this study, these same BACS were utilized as probes for fluorescence in-situ hybridization (FISH) to develop the GGA 17 cytogenetic map. Here we detail the chromosome order of ten BAC DNAs, thereby deriving a cytogenetic map of GGA 17 that is simultaneously integrated with both the linkage map and genome sequence. The location of the FISH probes together with the morphological appearance of the chromosome suggested that GGA 17 is an acrocentric chromosome whose cytogenetic map orientation is reversed from that currently indicated by the linkage map and draft genome sequence. The reversed orientation and the centromere location of GGA 17 were confirmed experimentally by dual-colour FISH hybridization using terminal BACs and the centromere-specific CNM oligonucleotide as probes. An advantage of this cyto-genomic approach is the improved alignment of the sequence and linkage maps with cytogenetic features such as the centromere, telomeres, p and q arms, and staining patterns indicating GC versus AT content.