Oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide production in some Arctic soils were measured in different thermic and humidity conditions. Testing temperatures was following: 4, 8 and 12°C. The rate of metabolic processes was temperature and humidity dependent. In the temperature of 4°C the metabolic processes intensity was negatively correlated with humidity, however in higher temperatures the higher was the humidity the higher was also the intensity of metabolic processes. The interaction of humidity and temperature is probably to great extent responsible for low rate of decomposition processes of organic matter in polar conditions.

Toxicity and physiological alterations were determined in Pseudococcus viburni nymphs treated with Artemisia annua methanolic extract. The leaf dipping bioassay showed LC50 values of 0.287% and 0.194% 24 and 48 hours post-exposure. Activities of general esterases were significantly higher in the control nymphs than in those which had been treated except for the 48 h time interval using α-naphtyl acetate. The activity of glutathione S-transferase using CDNB (1-chloro-2,4-dinitrobenzene) in the control nymphs, was significantly higher than in the control at both time intervals while no significant difference was observed after 24 h in addition to the higher enzymatic activity in the treated nymphs after 48 h. All three aminotransferases were significantly more active in the control nymphs except for time intervals of 24 h for γ-glutamyl transferase and 48 h for alanine aminotransferase. Higher activities of lactate dehydrogenase, acid- and alkaline phosphatase were found in the control nymphs than in treated nymphs for all time intervals. Activities of the enzymes involved in the antioxidant system including catalase, peroxidase, superoxide dismutase, ascorbate peroxidase and glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase was increased in the treated nymphs compared to the control. Results of the current study demonstrated toxic effects of A. annua methanolic extract on P. viburni nymphs causing mortality and physiological turbulences.

Allium cepa var. agrogarum L. seedlings grown in nutrient solution were subjected to increasing concentrations of Cd2+ (0, 1, 10, 100 μM). Variation in tolerance to cadmium toxicity was studied based on chromosome aberrations, nucleoli structure and reconstruction of root tip cells, Cd accumulation and mineral metabolism, lipid peroxidation, and changes in the antioxidative defense system (SOD, CAT, POD) in leaves and roots of the seedlings. Cd induced chromosome aberrations including C-mitoses, chromosome bridges, chromosome fragments and chromosome stickiness. Cd induced the production of some particles of argyrophilic proteins scattered in the nuclei and even extruded from the nucleoli into the cytoplasm after a high Cd concentration or prolonged Cd stress, and nucleolar reconstruction was inhibited. In Cd2+-treated Allium cepa var. agrogarum plants the metal was largely restricted to the roots; very little of it was transported to aerial parts. Adding Cd2+ to the nutrient solution affected mineral metabolism. For example, at 100 μM Cd it reduced the levels of Mn, Cu and Zn in roots, bulbs and leaves. Malondialdehyde content in roots and leaves increased with treatment time and increased concentration of Cd. Antioxidant enzymes appear to play a key role in resistance to Cd under stress conditions.

We compared the biochemical profiles of Physalis ixocarpa hairy roots transformed with Agrobacterium rhizogenes ATCC and A4 strains with non-transformed root cultures. The studied clones of A4- and ATCC-induced hairy roots differed significantly; the latter showed greater growth potential and greater ability to produce secondary metabolites (tropane alkaloids) and to biotransform hydroquinone to arbutin. We compared glucose content, alanine and aspartate aminotransferase activity, and L-phenylalanine ammonia-lyase activity. We analyzed markers of prooxidant/antioxidant homeostasis: catalase, ascorbate peroxidase, oxidase, glutathione peroxidase and transferase activity, and the levels of ascorbate, glutathione, tocopherol and lipid peroxidation. We found that transformation induced strain-specific regulation, including regulation based on redox signals, determining the rate of allocation of carbon and nitrogen resources to secondary metabolism pathways. Our results provide evidence that A. rhizogenes strain-specific modification of primary metabolites contributed to regulation of secondary metabolism and could determine the ability of P. ixocarpa hairy root clones to produce tropane alkaloids and to convert exogenously applied hydroquinone to pharmaceutically valuable arbutin. Of the studied parameters, glucose content, L-phenylalanine ammonia-lyase activity and alanine aminotransferases activity may be indicators of the secondary metabolite-producing potential of different P. ixocarpa hairy root clones.

Professor Agnieszka Chacińska from the International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology talks about her research on mitochondrial proteins and their association with neurodegenerative diseases and metabolic disorders.

Blood glucose level monitoring and control is of utmost importance to millions of people who have been diagnosed with diabetes or similar illnesses. One of the conventional tests for measuring how the human body breaks down glucose is IVGTT, the Intravenous Glucose Tolerance Test. The difficulty of computing the models of glucose-insulin interaction presents an issue when attempting to implement them in embedded hardware. The Metabolic P (MP), contrary to other models, does not require solving differential equations to compute, thus it could be an effective modelling approach for real-time applications. The present paper proves that MP system methodology-based IVGTT implementation in the Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) technology is reasonably precise and sufficiently flexible to be used effectively in multi-user scenarios. Presentation of the state-of-the-art focuses on glucose-insulin interaction models, glucose monitoring systems and MP system implementation techniques. Methods for MP system computations and techniques for their implementation on FPGA, together with the original unified MP system implementation technique, have been presented in this paper. The results of an elaborate investigation into the IVGTT MP systems, as well as their single and unified MP implementation techniques have also been considered. It is shown that the techniques developed are applicable to all known IVGTT MP systems, and can achieve RMSE not higher than 15% using a word length of at least 32 bits. The novel MP system combined quality metrics and its pictorial representation allow the analysis of various implementation characteristics. Compared to the unified pipelined IVGTT MP system implementation technique, the developed unified combinational technique ensures a 2‒3 times higher speed.

Thermoregulation is fully developed in 5 day old Wilson's storm petrels Oceanites oceanicus (Kuhl). Resting metabolic rate (RMR) and body temperature (Tb) of unattended 1- and 3-day old chicks continuously decrease at ambient temperature (Ta) of 5°C. After being heated the chicks return to normothermia. Ability to survive temporal deep hypothermia seems to be an adaptation to absence of parents and low temperatures in the nest during first days of life. After snow storm, during two days of starvation, chick RMR decreases by 40% at Ta of 0°C, but chick Tb is stable. This suggest decrease of thermal conductance (Ct). Fall of Ct may suggest beginning of hypohermia.

Eye fluids (aqueous humour and vitreous humour) may be helpful in estimating ante-mortem blood levels, since some parameters measured in these fluids have proved to be stable or to change in a predictable way after death. This would help in diagnosing the cause of death in some diseases or to evaluate ante-mortem blood levels in certain animals not easy to handle or with difficult access. In order to establish reference values of some parameters in blood and eye fluids (aqueous humour and vitreous humour), as well as the possible correlation among these three different fluids, various minerals and electrolytes (Ca, P, Mg, K, Na, Fe, Cr, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Se and Mo) were measured in 15 four to five year-old Lidia bulls, all dying after a period of significant stress and major exertion. Plasmatic values of Mg and P were much greater than reported in the literature. In general, mineral plasmatic values were greater than those found in ocular fluids (aqueous and vitreous), while Na, K and Cr were similar in the three fluids. We have verified the existence of correlations in P, Co and Mo among the three fluids measured, and between Se of plasma and vitreous humour. But the most marked correlations were observed in Mo (plasma -aqueous humour, r = 0.893, plasma-vitreous humour, r = 0.945, HA -HV, r = 0.849), in P (plasma-vitreous humour, r = 0.726) and in Co (plasma-vitreous humour, r = 879).

It appears from the analysis of the chemical composition of macroalgae of the Antarctic: Adenocystis utricularis and Himantothallus grandifolius (brown algae), Leptosomia simplex (red algae) and Monostroma hariotti (green algae) that the examined algae, brown algae in particular (mainly Adenocystis utricularis), are rich in mineral components, primarily: sodium, potassium, hologens, and structural polysaccharides. Organic substances, such as: proteins, amino acids, lipids, fatty acids, saccharides reduction, chlorophylls and carotenoids, occur in the analysed algae in quantities much smaller in comparison with taxonomically similar macroalgae derived from marine environment having more favourable hydrochemical and climatic conditions.