Transport of pollutants through the water and subsurface soil using simulated acid rain

The mobility of heavy metals (Zn, Cd, Pb and Ni) was studied in the laboratory acidic leaching two different soils around Ibadan with simulated acid rain. The sampling was carried out from two different sites viz: Orogun and Ilupeju respectively. For Orogun site a depth of 128cm was reached (consisting of four horizons). Different length of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) pipes were cut for different soil horizon depth as observed on the field. The PVC pipes were packed with requires masses of soil. This is then leached using simulated acid rain of different pH of 2.0, 4.0, 6.0 and 8.0 after spiking with known volume of standard solution of metals of interest. It was found that simulated acid rain enhanced the mobility of metals in solution. The pH, Cation Exchange capacity, % clay and organic matter were found to contributed majority to the mobility of metals. Generally as observed, the mobility of metal was to follow the order Zn>Ni>Pb>Cd as the soil is becoming more acidic

Structural and functional properties of the hemoglobin components from the Caspian Sea Acipenser persicus and Acipenser stellatus

Hemoglobin (Hb) variability is a commonly used index of phylogenetic differentiation and molecular adaptation in fish. In the current study, the structural and functional characteristics of Hbs from two Sturgeon species of the Southern Caspian Sea Basin were investigated. After extraction and separation of hemoglobin from whole blood , the polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDSPAGE), native-PAGE and isoelectric focusing (IEF) were used to confirm Hb variability in these fishes. Ion-exchange on CM-cellulose chromatography was used for purification of the dominant Hbs from these fishes. The accuracy of the methods was confirmed by IEF and SDS-PAGE. Spectral studies using fluorescence spectrophotometery, circular dichroism spectropolarimetry (CD) analysis and UV–vis spectrophotometery. Oxygen affinities of these Hbs were compared using Hb-oxygen dissociation curves. Also, the dominant Hbs from these blood fishes were utilized for further experiments. The behavior of Hbs during the denaturation process by n-dodecyl trimethylammonium bromide (DTAB) is investigated by UV–vis spectrophotometer and circular dichroism spectropolarimetry. The thermal denaturation properties of the Hbs wereinvestigated by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and Hbs aggregation performed chemically in the presence of dithiotreitol (DTT) by UV–vis spectrophotometer and chemometric study. The results demonstrate a significant relationship between stability of fish hemoglobins and the ability of fish for entering to deeper depths. The UV–Vis absorption spectra identified species of hemoglobin and showed the concentration of oxyHb and metHb decreases and deoxyHb increases upon interaction with DTAB. Besides the UV–vis spectrophotometry, the interaction of DTAB with hemoglobins has been studied using circular dichroism spectropolarimetry analysis. This experiment was utilized to measure the unfolding mechanism and compared alpha-helix secondary structure under different conditions for Hbs. The results reveal that the Acipenser stellatus Hb in comparison with Acipenser persicus Hb has more stability and more structural compactness. Besides, the results confirm the hypothesis that there is a meaningful relation between average habitat depth, partial oxygen pressure, oxygen affinity, structural compactness of Hb, and its stability.

Liver cytochrome oxidase P4501A1 purification of Acipenser persicus and designing ELISA for measuring

Moon oxygenases related to cytochrome P450s are the molecular Biomarkers which have important role in Biotransformation of endogenous and exogenous compounds and catalazyin of many biological reactions. One of the important isoenzyme is cytochrome P4501A. This isoenzyme involved in metabolism of environment pollutnts such as PAHs. Because of its inducibility, it has a key tool for impact assesment of contaminants in aquatic environment. In this study, at first, that fractions containing Acipenser persicus and Huso huso isoenzyme were purified, and after that Antibodies against them were prepared. For isolation of isoenzyme fraction, Microsomes were prepared from fish liver using differential centrifugation at high speeds. microsomes were solubiized by cholat sodium and Emulgen. Extraction of this isoenzyme was done with the combinatuion of ionexchange chromatography and gelfiltration or chromatofocusing chromatography. Ion exchange chromatography and gel filtration were applied in DEAE sepharose fast flow and sephacryl S200 respectively and chromatofocusing was done at poly buffer 74 and 94 exchanger. The results of SDS-PAGE Showed that the molecular weight of isoenzyme was about 58±1 KDa. Furthermore the inmunoblotting results confirmed this subject. Isoenzyme activigy based on EROD (Ethoxyresorofin o-deethylase) reaction showed about 20-26 fold increase in enzyme activity of treated fish than control fish. The results of Elisa, Using monoclonal anti cod P4501A demonstrated the inducibility and highly elevated of its activity in treated sample more than the control fish. Mean while, the fish sample were showed the strong reaction to polyclonal antibody against beluga P4501A1 prepared in our Lab compared to monoclonal anti body.