Muscle delta C-13 change in Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus): Effects of growth and carbon turnover

The contribution of growth and turnover to the muscle delta C-13 change process was investigated using mathematical models which associate delta C-13 change to time of intake of a new diet or increase in body mass. Two groups of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) were fed on diets based on C3 (sigma C-13 = - 25.64 +/- 0.06 parts per thousand) or C4 (delta C-13= -16.01 +/- 0.06 parts per thousand) photosynthetic cycle plants to standardize the muscle delta C-13. After establishing the carbon isotopic equilibrium, fish (mean mass 24.12 +/- 6.79 g) then received the other treatment diet until a new carbon isotopic equilibrium could be established, characterizing T1 (C3-C4) and T2 (C4-C3) treatments. No significant differences were observed in fish productive performance. Good fits were obtained for the models that associated the delta C-13 change to time, resulting in carbon half-life values of 23.33 days for T1 and 25.96 days for T2. Based on values found for the muscle delta C-13 change rate from growth (0.0263 day(-1) and 0.0254 day(-1)) and turnover (0.0034 day(-1) and 0.0013 day(-1)), our results indicate that most of the delta C-13 change could be attributed to growth. The application of model that associated the delta C-13 change to body mass increase seems to produce results with no apparent biological explanation. The delta C-13 change rate could directly reflect the daily ration and growth rate, and consequently the isotopic change rates of carbon and other tissue elements can be properly used to assess different factors that may interfere in nutrient utilization and growth. (c) 2006 Published by Elsevier B.V.

Glutamina e turnover do carbono da mucosa intestinal de leitões desmamados

Um experimento foi conduzido para verificar a influência da glutamina no turnover do carbono na mucosa intestinal de leitões desmamados. Nove matrizes receberam dietas compostas basicamente de plantas do ciclo fotossintético C4 durante toda a gestação (d‰13C = 17,12) e lactação (d‰13C = -19,26). Os leitões foram desmamados aos 21 dias de idade e 68 deles foram alimentados com ração composta de plantas do ciclo fotossintético C3 (d‰13C = -25,12). Os leitões foram aleatoriamente distribuídos em duas dietas: uma sem suplementação de glutamina; e outra suplementada com 1% de glutamina. Aos 0; 1; 1,5; 2; 2,5; 3; 3,5; 4; 4,5; 5; 5,5; 8; 11; 15, 20; 29 e 46 dias pós-desmame, dois leitões de cada dieta foram abatidos para coleta de amostras da mucosa intestinal, que foram analisadas quanto à composição isotópica de d‰13C e mensurada a velocidade de substituição do carbono no tempo. Os valores da meia-vida do carbono para a mucosa intestinal foram de 6,0 e 3,5 dias para as dietas controle e com glutamina, respectivamente. A glutamina acelerou a velocidade de substituição do carbono na mucosa intestinal, evidenciando sua ação benéfica na recuperação da estrutura do intestino após o desmame.

Stable isotopes for determining carbon turnover in sheep feces and blood

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Xylanase production by Aspergillus versicolor

The xylanolytic system of Aspergillus versicolor is controlled by induction and carbon catabolite repression. Carboxymethylcellulose and wheat bran were the best inducers of xylanolytic activity. When the fungus was grown for 5 days on VOGEL's liquid medium with wheat bran, the optimal pH and temperature for xylanase production were 6.5 and 30 degrees C, respectively. Optimal conditions for the xylanolytic activity assay were at pH 6.0 and 55 degrees C. The half-life at 60 degrees C of the crude enzyme was 6.5 and 21 minutes, in the absence or presence of substrate, respectively.Xylan is the main hemicellulosic component of plant biomass being present in appreciable quantities in agricultural and several agroindustrial wastes. From the products of xylan enzymatic hydrolysis it is possible to obtain cell protein, fuels and other chemicals. Xylanases combined with cellulase could have applications in food processing. Cellulase-free xylanases can be also utilized for preparation of cellulose pulps and liberation of textile fibres (WOODWARD 1984; BIELY 1985, WONG et al. 1988). In view of the potential applications of xylanases, a study of these enzymes from various sources and their multiplicity is desirable.Among xylanolytic microorganisms, filamentous fungi have been more extensively studied and the genus Aspergillus has been shown to be an efficient producer of xylanases. Preliminary observations from our laboratory have demonstrated that a strain of Aspergillus versicolor, isolated from Brazilian soil, produced high xylanase and low cellulase levels, which is an interesting characteristic for some industrial applications. In this report we describe the production and some properties of xylanase obtained from this fungus.

Cell-associated acid beta-xylosidase production by Penicillium sclerotiorum

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Purification and characterization of the exopolygalacturonase produced by Aspergillus giganteus in submerged cultures

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Production and characterization of glucoamylase from fungus Aspergillus awamori expressed in yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae using different carbon sources

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Localization and partial characterization of thermostable glucoamylase produced by newly isolated Thermomyces lanuginosus TO3 in submerged fermentation

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Theoretical study of omeprazole behavior: Racemization barrier and decomposition reaction

omeprazole is a substituted benzimidazole which suppresses gastric-acid secretion by means of H+, K+-ATPase inhibition. It is an optically active drug with the sulfur of the sulfoxide being the chiral center. This pro-drug can be easily converted into its respective sulfenamide at low pH. In this work, omeprazole has been studied in relation to racemization barrier and decomposition reaction. Quantum chemistry coupled to PCA chemometric method were used to find all minimum energy structures. Conformational analysis and calculation of racemization barriers were carried out by PM3 semiempirical method (Gaussian 98). The average racemization energy barrier for all minimum energy structures (43.56 kcal mol(-1)) can be related to the velocity constant in Eyring's equation. The enormous half-life time at 100 degrees C (9.04 x 10(4) years) indicates that the process cannot be observed in human time scale. on the other hand, the difference of free energy change (Delta(Delta G) = -266.78 kcal mol(-1)) for the decomposition reaction shows that the process is favorable to the sulfenamide formation. The highly negative Delta(Delta G) obtained for the decomposition reaction shows that this process is extremely exothermic. This result explains why omeprazole decomposes and does not racemize. (C) 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Perfil espacial e temporal de poluentes nas águas da represa municipal de São José do Rio Preto, São Paulo, Brasil

In this manuscript, seasonal and spatial trends of water collected from two sampling places in the Preto River in the Turvo-Grande watershed were evaluated. Water samples were collected during June/07 to July/08 and parameters sulphate, total organic carbon, ammonia, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, temperature, dissolved total solids and nitrate were quantified. Seasonal trend indicated sanitary effluents as a point source of contamination in both sampling points. Vertical trends demonstrated that the Municipal Dam was not stratified and received a diffuse source of pollutants from flooding and agriculture runoffs. It was also verified that there is relatively fast ammonia consumption kinetics having a half-life time of 1.43 h which can explain the low ammonia concentrations found in these aquatic bodies.

Superstrings in 2D backgrounds with R-R flux and new extremal black holes

The hybrid formalism is used to quantize the superstring compactified to two-dimensional target-space in a manifestly spacetime supersymmetric manner. A quantizable sigma model action is then constructed for the type II superstring in curved two-dimensional supergravity backgrounds which can include Ramond-Ramond flux. Such curved backgrounds include Calabi-Yau fourfold compactifications with Ramond-Ramond flux, and new extremal black hole solutions in two-dimensional dilaton supergravity theory. These black hole solutions are a natural generalization of the CGHS model and might be possible to describe using a supergroup version of the SL(2, R)/U(1) WZW model. We also study some dynamical aspects of the new black holes, such as formation and evaporation. (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier B.V. B.V.

Integrable aspects of the scaling q-state Potts models I: bound states and bootstrap closure

We discuss the q-state Potts models for q less than or equal to 4, in the scaling regimes close to their critical or tricritical points. Starting from the kink S-matrix elements proposed by Chim and Zamolodchikov, the bootstrap is closed for the scaling regions of all critical points, and for the tricritical points when 4 > q greater than or equal to 2. We also note a curious appearance of the extended last line of Freudenthal's magic square in connection with the Potts models. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. B.V. All rights reserved.

Radii in weakly-bound light halo nuclei

A systematic study of the root-mean-square distance between the constituents of weakly-bound nuclei consisting of two halo neutrons and a core is performed using a renormalized zero-range model. The radii are obtained from a universal scaling function that depends on the mass ratio of the neutron and the core, as well as on the nature of the subsystems, bound or virtual. Our calculations are qualitatively consistent with recent data for the neutron-neutron root-mean-square distance in the halo of Li-11 and Be-14 nuclei. (C) 2004 Published by Elsevier B.V.

Solitons with isospin

We study the symmetries of the soliton spectrum of a pair of T-dual integrable models, invariant under global SL(2)(q) circle times U(1) transformations. They represent an integrable perturbation of the reduced Gepner parafermions, based on certain gauged SL(3)-WZW model. Their (semiclassical) topological soliton solutions, carrying isospin and belonging to the root of unity representations of q-deformed SU(2)(q)-algebra are obtained. We derive the semiclassical particle spectrum of these models, which is further used to prove their T-duality properties. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V All rights reserved.

Classification of states in S0(8) proton-neutron pairing model

lsoscalar (T = 0) plus isovector (T = 1) pairing Hamiltonian in LS-coupling. which is important for heavy N = Z nuclei, is solvable in terms of a SO(8) Lie algebra for three special values of the mixing parameter that measures the competition between the T = 0 aid T = 1 pairing. The SO(8) algebra is generated, amongst others, by the S = 1, T = 0 and S = 0, T = 1 pair creation and annihilation operators and corresponding to the three values of the mixing parameter, there are three chains of subalgebras: SO(8) superset of SOST (6) superset of SOS(3) circle times SOT(3), SO(8) superset of [SOS(5) superset of SOS(3)] circle times SOT(3) and SO(8) superset of [SOT(5) superset of SOT(3)] circle times SOS(3). Shell model Lie algebras, with only particle number conserving generators, that are complementary to these three chains of subalgebras are identified and they are used in the classification of states for a given number of nucleons. The classification problem is solved explicitly tor states with SO(8) seniority nu = 0, 1, 2, 3 and 4. Using them, hand structures in isospin space are identified for states with nu = 0, 1, 2 and 3. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.