[The severity of menopausal symptoms and cardiovascular risk in women].

Menopause is a crucial time in the life of any women. Perhaps the severity of menopausal symptoms defines further state of female health. The aim of the study is to assess changes of cardiovascular system during perimenopause and the connection between this changes and severity of menopausal symptoms. The data of 155 premenopausal women without coronary heart disease were analyzed. To assess women hormonal state follicle stimulating hormone was measured. The severity of menopausal symptoms was evaluated with the help of Kupperman questionnaire form in Uvarova modification. All women were divided into two groups according to follicle stimulating hormone. Women with follicle stimulating hormone higher 30 MU/l were classified as postmenopausal. It was shown that groups of pre - and postmenopausal women significantly differ in age, progesterone, follicle stimulating hormone level, and SCORE. The severity of menopausal symptoms was the same in studied groups. Regression analysis revealed that severity of menopausal symptoms depended on systolic blood pressure, follicle stimulating hormone level, progesterone level. The link between cardiovascular risk (SCORE) and follicle stimulating hormone, NO2, ApoА1, and severity of menopausal symptoms was found.

A Novel High-Resolving Method for Genomic PCR-Fingerprinting of Enterobacteria.

We developed a novel PCR-fingerprinting system for differentiation of enterobacterial strains using a single oligonucleotide primer IS1tr that matches the inverted terminal repeats of the IS1 insertion element. Compared to widely used BOX-PCR and ribotyping methods, our system features higher resolution allowing differentiation of closely related isolates that appear identical in BOX-PCR and ribotyping but differ in their phage sensitivity. The IS1-profiling system is less sensitive to the quality of the material and equipment used. At the same time, BOX-PCR is more universal and suitable for bacterial strain grouping and reconstruction of the low-distance phylogeny. Thus, our system represents an important supplement to the existing set of tools for bacterial strain differentiation; it is particularly valuable for a detailed investigation of highly divergent and rapidly evolving natural bacterial populations and for studies on coliphage ecology. However, some isolates could not be reliably differentiated by IS1-PCR, because of the low number of bands in their patterns. For improvement of IS1-fingerprinting characteristics, we offer to modify the system by introducing the second primer TR8834 hybridizing to the sequence of a transposase gene that is widely spread in enterobacterial genomes.

[Diversity and dynamics of bacteriophages in horse feces].

The complex cellulolytic microbial community of the horse intestines is a convenient model for studying the ecology of bacteriophages in natural habitats. Unlike the rumen of the ruminants, this community of the equine large intestine is not subjected to digestion. The inner conditions of the horse gut are much more stable in comparison to other mammals, due to the fact that the horse diet remains almost unchanged and the intervals between food consumption and defecation are much shorter than the whole digestive cycle. The results of preliminary analysis of the structure and dynamics of the viral community of horse feces, which combines direct and culture methods, are presented. In horse fecal samples, we detected more than 60 morphologically distinct phage types, the majority of which were present as a single phage particle. This indicates that the community includes no less than several hundreds of phage types. Some phage types dominated and constituted 5-11% of the total particle count each. The most numerous phage type had an unusual morphology: the tails of its members were extremely long (about 700 nm), flexible, and irretractable, while their heads were 100 nm in diameter. Several other phage types with similar but not identical properties were detected. The total coliphage plaque count of the samples taken from three animals revealed significant fluctuations in the phage titers. During the observation time, the maximum titer ranged within four orders of magnitude (10(3)-10(7) plaque forming units (PFU)/g); the minimum titer ranged within two orders of magnitude. The samples contained two to five morphologically distinct and potentially competitive coliphage types, specific to a single Escherichia coli strain.

[Effect of propranolol on the cardiac rhythm variability and the cardiac cycle phase structure in healthy volunteers]. / Vliianie propranolola na variabel'nost' serdechnogo ritma i fazovuiu strukturu serdechnogo tsikla u zdorovykh dobrovol'tsev.

In an acute pharmacological test in 13 healthy volunteers (24 +/- 4) years old effects were studied of propranolol, 40 mg/50 kg body mass, on the sympathovagal regulation and phase patterns of the cardiac cycle. The study was made with the aid of the computer electrocardiograph "Cardiolab 2000" at the height of the propranolol effect by standard methods. The state of the sympathovagal regulation was assessed by the heart's rhythm variability technique with respect to the spectrum lowfrequency and highfrequency ranges powers. There have been measured duration of the P-wave, PQ-interval, QRS-complex, QT-interval to analyze phase patterns of the cardiac cycle. One-dose intake of propranolol has been shown to optimize the sympathovagal balance by boosting the influence of that portion of the autonomic nervous system, whose baseline activity has been shown to be slight. Optimization of the sympathovagal balance was accompanied by general enhancement of the level of neurohumoral regulation. Effect of propranolol on the phase patterns of the cardiac cycle was invariant from the baseline state and from subsequent changes in the sympathovagal balance.