Immunohistochemical detection of arteriolar hyperplasia in canine liver biopsy samples using the claudin-5 antibody

Claudins are key tight junctional proteins between adjacent epithelial, mesothelial or endothelial cells, which are responsible for the permeability of the paracellular space. This paper describes that the endothelial cells of normal hepatic arterioles, portal venules and portal lymphatics as well as the endothelium of sinusoids from dogs show strong membranous claudin-5 cross-reactivity. In 25 liver biopsy samples taken from dogs with portal vein hypoperfusion, an increased number of arterioles was detected in the portal areas (PAs) by the use of humanised anti-claudin-5 antibody. The increased number of hyperplastic hepatic arterioles per PA was 5-6, 8-12 and 15-20 in the case of small, medium-sized and large PAs, respectively. It is suggested that the claudin-5 marker can improve the detection of hepatic arteriolar proliferation in the PAs of liver samples.     

Evaluation of the studies on decline of pesticide residues

A specifically designed field trial was carried out in an apple orchard by applying Reldan 50 EC (active ingredient, chlorpyrifos-methyl) according to registered uses in Hungary to study the variability of results derived from supervised field trials. Two types of composite samples (A, size 24; and C, size 12) were taken at days 0, 3, 7, 10, and 14 after application to study the uncertainty of estimated residue values derived from supervised trials. In the case of type A the sampling officer selected the fruits from the specified quadrant of the tree, whereas for type C the fruits were taken from the vicinity of the marked position at consecutive sampling times. An evaluation model applying various formulas for the linearization of the decline curves of pesticide residues was applied, which enabled using the statistics of linear regression for calculating the best fit and confidence intervals for the experimental data. The results indicated that the uncertainty of sampling contributed approximately 84-90% of the combined uncertainty of the results (24-30%). In the decline studies performed simultaneously on the same field, the estimated time required to decrease the initial concentration to half ranged from 0.64 to 4.7 days. Despite the fact that the sample size of type C is half that of type A, both sampling methods provided similar results.     

Excitatory effect of GABAergic axo-axonic cells in cortical microcircuits

Axons in the cerebral cortex receive synaptic input at the axon initial segment almost exclusively from gamma-aminobutyric acid-releasing (GABAergic) axo-axonic cells (AACs). The axon has the lowest threshold for action potential generation in neurons; thus, AACs are considered to be strategically placed inhibitory neurons controlling neuronal output. However, we found that AACs can depolarize pyramidal cells and can initiate stereotyped series of synaptic events in rat and human cortical networks because of a depolarized reversal potential for axonal relative to perisomatic GABAergic inputs. Excitation and signal propagation initiated by AACs is supported by the absence of the potassium chloride cotransporter 2 in the axon.     

Sanitary Management in Hungarian Aquaculture

Veterinary Research Communications -     

Changes of surface, fine pore and variable charge properties of a brown forest soil under various tillage practices

Effects of 6 years no-tillage (NT), ploughing, disking and the two last treatments combined with loosening on surface area, water vapor adsorption energy, variable charge and fine pore properties of a brown forest soils were studied using water vapor adsorption–desorption, back-titration and mercury intrusion measurements. The studied soil properties altered markedly under mechanical tillage treatment as compared to NT soil. The radii and the volumes of cryptopores (sizes from 1 to a few tens of nanometers) decreased and the opposite was found for ultramicropores (sizes from a few tens of nanometers to around 10 μm). However, fractal dimension of cryptopores and ultramicropores had changed very slightly, indicating that general geometrical structure of the fine pore system in the studied range (ca 1 nm–10 μm) remained unaltered despite pore size-shift. Surface areas and the amount of variable surface charge were markedly lower in mechanically tilled soil. A decrease of organic matter content was observed as well. Decrease of water vapor adsorption energy and increase of the fraction of strongly acidic surface functional groups accompanied mechanical tillage treatments.