[High pressure technology and examples of its use in the biological sciences]. / Technika vysokých tlaku a príklady jejího uzití v biologických oborech.

A short description of basic types of high pressure apparatuses is presented in view of their application in a research in the biosciences. General tendencies in an evolution of characteristic inter-atomic bonds and their changes under high pressure are shortly reviewed. A complex behaviour of organic macromolecular compounds under pressure is demonstrated by the effects of pressure on proteins (including p--T diagram of proteins denaturation). In consequence, an effect of pressure on the simplest micro-organisms is mentioned and relevant critical pressures of sterilization are presented. Trends in a future application of results of the pressure research in biosciences are discussed.

[Parameters of non-specific immunity in umbilical cord blood in response to the stress of labor and surgery in healthy mothers and patients with late gestoses]. / Nekteré parametry nespecifické imunitní odpovedi na porodní a operacní stres v pupecníkové krvi matek zdravých a nemocných pozdní gestózou.

The authors investigated six proteins of the acute phase in the serum of mothers and in the umbilical blood of the foetus during spontaneous delivery and after Caesarean section in 40 women and their neonates. Half the women were in good health, half suffered from late gestoses. The patients' age, weeks of delivery and operation, the mean body weight of the neonates and evaluation of their condition after delivery by the Agpar score were comparable. The results were processed statistically. Mean levels of six proteins of the acute phase were assessed in the serum of the mother and the umbilical blood in all four groups of women and their neonates and percentage ratios of proteins in mother and foetus were assessed. On evaluation by the two-sample t-test in the umbilical blood of spontaneous deliveries in late gestoses significantly lower prealbumin values were found, and the same applied to Caesarean sections. Conversely a significant increase of A2MG levels and orosomucoid was found in the umbilical blood of children from mothers with late gestoses after Caesarean section. The values of the orosomucoid/prealbumin index according to Hollinshead were markedly elevated in late gestoses in the maternal blood as well as in the umbilical blood of the foetus.