Participation of Phosphatidylinositol-3 Kinase Signalling in Human Chorionic Gonadotropin, Bovine Insulin (B-Insulin) and Human-Insulin-Like Growth Factor-I Induced Oocyte Maturation and Steroidogenesis in the Grey Mullet, Mugil Cephalus.

CONTEXT: The grey mullet, Mugil cephalus, is an edible fish of high economic importance. Breeding biology with reference to hormonal/growth factor regulation of oocyte maturation needs to be known for its commercial production. OBJECTIVE: The present study was conducted to examine the potency of maturation inducing hormones, chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), bovine-insulin, and insulin like growth factor1 (h-IGF-1) I on ovarian steroidogenesis and oocyte maturation. DESIGN: The role of hormones and growth factors on steroidogenesis and oocyte maturation was investigated using specific inhibitors, Wortmannin for phosphatidylinositol-3 (PI3) kinase, trilostane for 3ß-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase, 1-octanol and 1-heptanol for gap junctions, actinomycin D for transcription and cycloheximide for translation of signal molecules. METHODS: Actions of hormonal and growth factors were examined for steroidogenesis, by radioimmunoassay and oocyte maturation by germinal vesicle breakdown (GVBD). Specific inhibitors were used to determine the cell signaling pathways, PI3 kinase. RESULTS: All the inhibitors attenuated the hCG-induced oocyte maturation (GVBD%), steroidogenesis including transcription, translation, gap junctions and PI3 kinase signaling. These inhibitors failed to inhibit h-IGF-I and b-insulin-induced oocyte maturation, steroidogenesis, translation and PI3 kinase signaling. CONCLUSION: hCG induces oocyte maturation via steroid dependent pathway involving gap junctions, transcription, translation and PI3 kinase signaling, unlike h-IGF-I and b-insulin in the mullet.

Hopping-Induced Ground-State Magnetism in 6H Perovskite Iridates.

Investigation of elementary excitations has advanced our understanding of many-body physics governing most physical properties of matter. Recently spin-orbit excitons have drawn much attention, whose condensates near phase transitions exhibit Higgs mode oscillations, a long-sought-after physical phenomenon [A. Jain, et al., Nat. Phys. 13, 633 (2017)NPAHAX1745-247310.1038/nphys4077]. These critical transition points, resulting from competing spin-orbit coupling (SOC), local crystalline symmetry, and exchange interactions, are not obvious in iridium-based materials, where SOC prevails in general. Here, we present results of resonant inelastic x-ray scattering on a spin-orbital liquid Ba_{3}ZnIr_{2}O_{9} and three other 6H-hexagonal perovskite iridates that show magnetism, contrary to the nonmagnetic singlet ground state expected due to strong SOC. Our results show that substantial hopping between closely placed Ir^{5+} ions within Ir_{2}O_{9} dimers in these 6H iridates modifies spin-orbit coupled states and reduces spin-orbit excitation energies. Here, we are forced to use at least a two-site model to match the excitation spectrum going in-line with the strong intradimer hopping. Apart from SOC, low-energy physics of iridates is thus critically dependent on hopping and may not be ignored even for systems having moderate hopping, where the excitation spectra can be explained using an atomic model. SOC, which is generally found to be 0.4-0.5 eV in iridates, is scaled in effect down to ∼0.26 eV for the 6H systems, sustaining the hope of achieving quantum criticality by tuning Ir-Ir separation.

Spectrophotometric determination of tetracyclines in pharmaceutical preparations, with uranyl acetate.

Uranyl acetate is proposed as a reagent for the spectrophotometric determination of the tetracycline group of antibiotics. The reagent forms orange-red 1:1 complexes with the drugs in N,N-dimethylformamide medium. The complexes show absorption maxima at 414, 406, 419, 405 and 402 nm for tetracycline hydrochloride (TCH), oxytetracycline hydrochloride (OTCH), chlortetracycline hydrochloride (CTCH), doxycycline hydrochloride (DCH) and methacycline hydrochloride (MCH), respectively. Beer's law is valid over the concentration ranges 0-115, 0-120, 0-125, 0-135 and 0-110 microg/ml for TCH, OTCH, CTCH, DCH and MCH, respectively.

Determination of traces of molybdenum and tungsten by extraction and polarography of their salicoylhydroxamates.

Molybdenum and tungsten salicoylhydroxamates have been extracted into methyl isobutyl ketone or a mixture of chloroform and isobutyl alcohol from 1.5M hydrochloric acid and subjected to DC and derivative pulse polarography (DPP) after addition of methanolic lithium chloride solution, phosphoric acid and water in defined proportions. Molybdenum gives two DC waves with E(1 2 ) at -125 and -525 mV and a sharp DPP peak at -75 mV, whereas tungsten shows a single DC wave at -840 mV and a DPP peak at -850 mV. The two metals can be determined down to the sub-ppm level.