[Soluble transferrin receptors: significance and diagnostic value in anemia]. / Rastvorimye retseptory transferrina: znachenie v diagnostike anemii.

The study was undertaken for the purpose of demonstrating a diagnostic importance of determining the level of soluble transferrin receptors not only in the diagnosis of iron-deficiency conditions (IDC) or in the differential diagnosis of anemia in a chronic disease (ACD) and of iron-deficiency anemia (IDA) but also in making a diagnosis in case of transfusion-dependent patients with Cooley's anemia. The iron metabolism (including determination of the serum iron (SI), of the total iron-binding ability (TIBA), of saturation of transferrin with iron (STFI), of serum transferrin (ST), and of soluble transferrin receptors (s-STR) was examined in 31 patients with different-genesis anemias, aged 3 to 7. Diagnoses were made for all children on the basis of the standard clinical-and-laboratory examinations and tests. A pattern of iron-metabolism parameters, typical of this pathology, was detected in all IDC patients; it is noteworthy, that the s-STR concentration amounted in this category to 9.4 +/- 1.35 mg/l, which essentially topped the normal values. It can be concluded on the basis of the obtained results that s-STR can be regarded as a key IDC marker. There was an increased SF (up to 324 +/- 64.5 mkg/L) alongside with hypoferremia in the ACD patients; the s-STR content was found to be within the reference values (3.21 +/- 0.55 mg/L), the determination of s-STR can be regarded as a test in the differential diagnosis of IDC and ACD. The results of s-STR research ranged, in patients with Cooley's anemia, drastically from 0.8 mg/L to 17 mg/L; it is noteworthy, that there was a reliable dependence on an adequacy of the conducted therapy in case of such patients. The highest sSTR values were found in children with the hereditary spherocytic hemolytic anemia (11.85 +/- 2.5 mg/L), which is, apparently, explained by a proliferative super-activity of the bone marrow observed in this pathology.

[Experiments with Bacillus thuringiensis protoplasts. II. Study of the potential interspecies fusion of bacterial protoplasts: Bacillus thuringiensis and Bacillus megaterium]. / Eksperimenty s protoplastami Bacillus thuringiensis. Soobshchenie II. Issledovanie vozmozhnosti mezhvidovogo sliianiia bakterial'nykh protoplastov: Bacillus thuringiensis i Bacillus megaterium.

In the present study the possibility of obtaining interspecific bacterial hybrids by polyethylene glycol-assisted fusion of protoplasts from Bacillus thuringiensis and Bac. megaterium has been examined. Electron microscopic and genetic data allow to confirm with great probability that cytological fusion takes place. However, genetic analysis revealed that neither of methods applied for protoplast fusion gave stable recombinants. Apparently, it is due to the lack of recombination or the death of recombinants that follows the functioning of the cell correction system. The mechanism of protoplast fusion and its most important steps are also studied in the present work.

Spectrophotometry as a tool for assaying endotoxins.

A spectrophotometric method is reported for assaying endotoxins over a wide concentration range, including low parts per billion levels. Five solution of endotoxins. Escherichia coli 0127:B8, Escherichia coli 055:B5, Salmonella abortus-equi, Salmonella enteritidis, and Shigella flexneri, were examined. Each exhibited an absorption maximum at 259 nm, but the absorptivities differed in each case. Thus, rigorous quantification requires that the identity of the endotoxin be known. The uv absorbance and the statistical data for the standard curves for three groups of standard solutions are presented. The absorbance for each group was linear with concentration within acceptable limits.