Mithocondria

Aging is an extremely complex biological process. Aging, cancer and inflammation represent a trinity, object of many interesting researches. The accumulation of DNA damage and its consequences progressively interfere with cellular function and increase susceptibility to developing aging condition. DNA Polymerase delta (Pol δ), encoded by POLD1 gene (MIM#174761) on 19q13.3, is well implicated in many steps of the replication program and repair. Thanks to its exonuclease and polymerase activities, the enzyme is involved in the regulation of the cell cycle, DNA synthesis, and DNA damage repair processes...

Leishmaniasis remains one of the ten Neglected Tropical Diseases with significant morbidity and mortality in humans. Current treatment of visceral leishmaniasis is difficult due to a lack of effective, non-toxic, and non-extensive medications. This study aimed to evaluate the selectivity of 12 synthetic endoperoxides (1,2,4-trioxolanes; 1,2,4,5-tetraoxanes) and uncover their biochemical effects on Leishmania parasites responsible for visceral leishmaniasis. The compounds were screened for in vitro activity against L...

This article is a scientific review on the effects of senescence of the respiratory chain and it aims to provide an overview of what role exercise has on the way the aging of the respiratory chain occurs. There are several reasons that explain the lack of exercise in senescent, less need, less interest, different goals, and also deficiencies that make these decisions strongest, as mild equilibrium, coordination, strength, or vision abnormalities. The use of the whole respiratory chain from the mithocondria to the the lungs, its solicitation through exercise and a proper nutrition are basic to limit the senescence of the system...

PURPOSE: To evaluate in a long term the morphometric and ultrastructural changes in seminiferous tubules (ST) of normal and diabetic rats, and to correlate any changes with animal age and diabetes duration. METHODS: Sixty male Wistar rats, three months-old, were randomly divided into two groups: 30 non-diabetic controls (N) and 30 alloxan untreated diabetic (D). After one, six and 12 months of follow-up or diabetes induction rats were sacrificed and the testes examined...

BACKGROUND: Mitochondria play a key role in the production of the cell energy. The final product of this process is adenosine triphosphate (ATP), used as a source of chemical energy. Besides this major role, mithocondria have been shown to be involved in other functions, such as signaling, cellular differentiation, cell death, as well as the control of the cell cycle and cell growth. The aim of this paper is to highlight the relationships between psychiatric disorders, especially schizophrenia, bipolar disorder (BD), autism, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and Alzheimer's dementia...

The aim of this study was to determine whether heat-shock pretreatment exerted a protective effect against sorbitol-induced apoptotic cell death in K562, U937 and HeLa cell lines and whether such protection was associated with a decreased cytochrome c release from mithocondria and a decreased activation of caspase-9 and -3. Following heat-shock pretreatment (42 +/- 0.3 degrees C for 1 hr), these cell lines were exposed to sorbitol for 1 hr. Apoptosis was evaluated by DNA fragmentation, whereas caspase-9,-3 activation, cytochrome c release and heat-shock protein70 (HSP70) were assayed by Western Blot...

INTRODUCTION: The recent failure of the clinical trial of ninocycline outlines if the mechanism of development of the death neuronal in the sporadic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (SALS) is different to that happens in models of transgenic mice with human mutations related with SOD (TgALS). METHOD: Differences on profile and intensity exist among the oxidative stress mechanisms between TgALS and SALS. Whereas the origin of apoptosis pathway in TgALS comes from the mithocondria and drives to caspase 9 with previous Bid and citocrome C discharge, in SALS, if apoptosis exists, that could proceed through activation of FAS pathway by means of cathepsin B, or alpha-TNF, for microglía activation or from cell cytosol...

OBJECTIVES: Cisplatin (cisPt) is used as a chemotherapeutic agent for the treatment of a variety of human tumours; more recently, it has been demonstrated that tumour cell exposure to cisPt ultimately results in apoptosis, but the mechanism by which nuclear cisPt/DNA generates the cytoplasmic cascade of events involved has not been clarified. We have investigated the effects of cisPt on proliferation in the neuronal cell line B50, with particular attention being given to understand whether mitochondria are a target of cisPt and their involvement in the apoptotic process...

Cardiac ischemia/reperfusion injury results in oxidative stress and poor physiological recovery. Episodes of hypoxia/reoxygenation (H/R) cause some subtle functional and structural alterations in sarcolemma, mithocondria, sarcoplasmic reticulum, nucleus, as well as cytoskeleton. In this report, by using cultured rat cardiomyocytes and laser confocal microscopy we have verified the possibility to counteract cytoskeleton alterations induced by H/R with the supplementation of an antioxidant agent, a green tea extract (GTE), and compared its effects to those of alpha-tocopherol...

This study was intended to investigate the effects of alcohol on the ultrastructure of fetal cerebellar Purkinje cells. Twelve adult female rats of Sprague-Dawley species were utilized. Control and experiment groups were formed. Rats were made pregnant. Rats in experiment group were administered liquid diet containing 6% alcohol. Cerebellums of infant rats were taken on 6th, 8th, and 10th days after birth. For electron microscopy, tissue sections were processed and stained with the usual methods. When control and experiment groups were compared for electron microscopic investigation, degeneration of mithocondria as cristolysis, dilatations of rough endoplasmic reticulum tubuli, and ring-shaped appearance of Golgi apparatus unit were determined...

The objective of the present study was represented by the effects of polyamineloaded liposomes on hepatic mitochondrial permeability transition (MPT). MPT was appreciated through the swelling of the isolated guinea-pig liver mithocondria induced by Ca2+, at 540 nm, using a diode-array 8452 UV-VIS spectrophotometer and a General Purpose software (Hewlett-Packard). Polyamines encapsulated in liposomes might inhibit the appearance of MPT induced by Ca2+, directly proportional to electrical charge: spermine > spermidine > putrescine > cadaverine...

The effects of cisplatin (cis-DDP) therapeutic treatment on the cytoplasmic compartment of satellite cells (SC) of rat dorsal root ganglia (DRG) were evaluated. Female Wistar rats were treated once a week with i.p. injection of cis-DDP (2 mg/kg) for 9 weeks. Morpho-quantitative changes of the cytoplasmatic organelles in SC cytoplasm from L4-L6 DRG were determined at the electron microscopic level. The quantitative changes in the lysosomal system components called dense bodies (DB) and in the mithocondria were stereologically evaluated...

Samples of heart, tongue, oesophagus and diaphragm muscle from twenty-two naturally infected roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) harvested in central Italy were examined for sarcosporidiasis. The structure of Sarcocystis spp. muscle cysts was examined by light and electron microscopy. Only one type of thin-walled cyst was distinguished by light microscopy. Electron microscopy showed cysts having a thin highly folded primary cyst wall, without fibrillar material, that formed thin hair-like protrusions often having a T-form, especially close to host cell mithocondria...

The present communication concerns the investigations of the effect of Juvenile Hormone (J.H.) and its analogs (J.H.A.), such as Altosid (R) and Altozar(R), used as insecticides, on the biosynthesis of proteins and RNA in subcellular preparations of drosophila larvae with Leucine-U-14C and Uridine-2-14C respectively. The incorporation of leucine into proteins decreases progressively from crude homogenate to the microsome-free fraction in the same way as the degradation of the compounds. During RNA biosynthesis the incorporation of uridine increases from the crude homogenate up to mithocondria-free fraction and with Altosid is always below the test controls...