Türker Kutluay

Is high concentration of serum lipids a risk factor for Achilles tendon rupture

BACKGROUND The incidence of the Achilles tendon ruptures (ATR) seems to be increasing due to changes in life style and intensified sports activities in recent years. Intrinsic and extrinsic factors have been implicated as predisposing risk factors to rupture. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the high serum lipid concentrations could be an intrinsic factor in patient with complete ruptures of Achilles tendon. METHODS The data were collected from the records of 47 patients with complete rupture of Achilles and the control group consisted of 26 subjects. RESULTS Total cholesterol (TC) and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) concentrations of the patients with ATR were higher (p<0.001), and their high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) was lower than the control group (p<0.05). Moreover, the concentrations of triglyceride (TG) and very low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (VLDL-C) were significantly higher than controls (p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS The causes of ATR are multifactorial and still unclear. However, high serum lipid concentrations might be considered, as a predisposing factor in patients with complete rupture of Achilles tendon and further investigations with larger groups would be better.

MEFV mutations in familial Mediterranean fever: association of M694V homozygosity with arthritis

ObjectiveFamilial Mediterranean fever (FMF) is an autosomal recessive recurrent polyserositis with a higher prevalence in some ethnic groups, including Turks. Mutations in the FMF gene (MEFV) were found associated with FMF. The aim of this study was to analyze MEFV gene mutations in FMF patients to gain insight into the mutation phenotype correlation.ObjectivesWe analyzed the most frequent mutations (M680I, M694V, V726A, and E148Q) in a group of young male Turkish FMF patients using an amplification refractory mutation system and a commercial kit.ResultsM694V mutation was detected in 80% of the patients. After making a strict diagnostic discrimination between arthralgia and arthritis, arthritis was present in 71% of homozygous and 29.4% of heterozygous patients for M694V mutation. Other mutations were not found to correlate with specific symptoms or findings.ConclusionThe homozygosity of M694V mutation in the MEFV gene is associated with arthritis in FMF patients.

Monitoring of serum ionized magnesium in neurosurgical intensive care unit: preliminary results

BACKGROUND Our purpose was to determine the values for serum ionized magnesium (Mg) concentrations in traumatic brain injury and its effect on the prognostic scores of patients. METHODS We prospectively measured serum ionized magnesium concentrations in 30 patients that were classified into three groups (severe, moderate, mild) by Glasgow Coma Scale Score. Serum ionized magnesium concentrations were measured during posttraumatic 5 days. Thirty patients with head trauma were followed in a neurosurgical intensive care unit with monitoring serum ionized magnesium concentrations. All patients were treated conservatively. RESULTS We found significant difference of serum ionized magnesium concentrations when we compared all groups with each other (p<0.001). CONCLUSIONS Based on this clinical preliminary study, traumatic brain injury is associated with graded deficit in serum ionized magnesium concentrations. Thus, measurement of serum ionized magnesium concentrations can be used as a clinical marker in traumatic brain injury.

Role of Urinary Zinc and Copper on Calcium Oxalate Stone Formation

Introduction: It is considered that many factors may play a role in urolithiasis. Experimental and clinical studies have shown that zinc has an inhibitory effect on urolithiasis. Materials and Methods: In this study, urinary zinc and copper were measured in 27 healthy controls and 30 calcium oxalate stone formers. Results: Urinary zinc excretion was significantly higher (p < 0.001) in stone formers than healthy controls (2,575 ± 274 and 960 ± 80 mg/day, respectively). There was no significant difference in urinary copper excretion between healthy controls and stone formers (32.3 ± 3.5 and 33.3 ± 3.2 µg/day, respectively). Conclusions: According to our results, the potent inhibitory effect of urinary zinc excretion on urolithiasis could be reviewed.

Oxidative phosphorylation enzyme complexes in caloric restriction.

Free radicals, generated especially by electron leakage from mitochondrial electron transport chain (ETC), are accepted as one of the possible causes of aging. Long-term caloric restriction (CR) is known to increase the species specific average and maximum life spans. Thus it provides a means for investigating mechanisms of aging. There is evidence suggesting a decrease in the free radical production with CR. In this study, Blue-Native PAGE (BN-PAGE) technique was used to investigate the effect of CR on the oxidative phosphorylation enzyme complexes. Of the total 30 female Swiss Albino balb/c mice, 15 were used as control and the other 15 as CR group. Alternate day feeding regimen was used in the CR group for 66 weeks beginning at the end of 3rd month. In the control group, 5 (33.3%) mice died, 3 (20%) of them of breast cancer, 2 (13.3%) of unknown causes and no death cases were observed in the CR group during the study. BN-PAGE was performed on the extracts from brain mitochondrial fractions. Complexes II and V were excluded from the study due to some analytical limitations. No difference was found in the levels of complexes I and III between the groups. In the CR group, complex IV level was found increased and the ratio of complex III-IV decreased compared with the control group. Since there is a slight increase (108%) in the level of complex IV in the CR group, our results could suggest possible partial compensation of electron leakage in the upstream complexes in ETC, and the decrease of free radical production with CR.

The role of erythrocyte protoporphyrin in the diagnosis of iron deficiency anemia of children.

The values of erythrocyte protoporphyrin, ferritin and mean corpuscular volume (MCV) measurements in diagnosing iron deficiency anemia were investigated in 72 iron deficient and in 25 healthy control infants. Receiver operator curve, sensitivity and specificity of erythrocyte protoporphyrin, ferritin and mean corpuscular volume were compared between the study and control groups. In the study group mean corpuscular volume, hemoglobin and ferritin concentrations were significantly lower, and erythrocyte protoporphyrin was significantly higher when compared to the control group. In the iron deficient study group, erythrocyte protoporphyrin was the most sensitive test and ferritin was the most specific test, whereas ferritin was the most diagnostic test and mean corpuscular volume was the least diagnostic test. A significant correlation between erythrocyte protoporphyrin and hemoglobin values was determined. We conclude that erythrocyte protoporphyrin is a more sensitive but less specific test than ferritin, and it can be used as a first-line diagnostic test in the evaluation of iron deficiency and in diagnosing iron deficiency anemia in infants.

The effect of isoprenoid side chain length of ubiquinone on life span.

The isoprenoid side chain length of ubiquinone (Q) can have an effect on the life span of mammals. The short living mouse and rat have Q(9), while primates have Q(10) as the major form. Ubiquinones (Qs) having longer hydrophobic tail are likely more imbedded in the mitochondrial inner membrane than the ones having shorter tails. In case of short tail length, ubisemiquinone (Q(*-)) produced during electron transport can be more exposed to the aqueous phase on both sides of the membrane, generate more superoxide radical and damage the neighbouring macromolecules. Considering the inefficient subcellular distribution of exogenous Q, production of transgenic animals synthesizing Qs having longer than 10 isoprenoid units (Q(>10)) can increase their life span.

An enzymeimmunoassay for total thyroxine using avidin-biotin separation system and thyroxine-peroxidase conjugate.

An avidin-biotin enzymeimmunoassay for total thyroxine in serum is described. Avidin was adsorbed to biotinylated bovine serum albumin coated tubes prepared with glutaraldehyde as coupling agent. In the enzymeimmunoassay, affinity purified biotinylated anti-thyroxine IgG, sample or standards, and thyroxine-horseradish peroxidase were simultaneously added to the avidin coated tubes. The bound enzymatic activity was then measured with o-phenylenediamine and H2O2. Results showed that the assay has good precision (within-assay CV% less than 10% and between assay 11.7% in hypo- and 6.9% in hyperthyroid range), good assay range (0-800 nmol/L), good sensitivity (4 nmol/L), and can be performed in 2.5 hours. The results obtained correlate well (r = 0.93) with those of an RIA.

The Development and Validation of a Competitive, Microtiter Plate Enzymeimmunoassay for Human Albumin in Urine

We have described a fast, simple and sensitive microtiter scale, solid phase, competitive enzymeimmunoassay (EIA) for the determination of urinary albumin. The albumin used in the test system was purified by the combination of PEG precipitation and DEAE-cellulose column chromatography. In this EIA, microtiter plates were coated with rabbit antihuman albumin IgG, and incubated with HRP-albumin conjugate with either sample or standards. O-phenylenediamine (OPD) and H2O2 solution was used as substrate for HRP. Results obtained correlate well (r = 0.994) with those of an in-house RIA in which same antibody and standards were used as in EIA. The present assay covers the range of 0.5 to 10 mg/L and can be performed in 2 hours. The detection limit was 0.15 mg/L of albumin. Within-assay coefficient of variation was 8.1% and 6.6% and between-assay variation was 10.6% and 8.6% at 1.25 and 2.5 mg/L respectively.

Neopterin levels in nonreplicative HBV carriers

The aim of this study was to determine the existence of immune activation by measuring neopterin in HBV (Hepatitis B virus) carriers with viral load (HBV DNA) less than 5 pg/ml. Forty-three subjects and 56 healthy controls were included in the study. Neopterin levels of were compared. ALT and ALP levels in one patient and AST levels in two patients were found minimally higher than upper limit, and GGT levels were within the reference range in all patients. Neopterin levels in the patient group and in the controls were 159.97+/-13.39 and 84.10+/-11.45 nmol/l, respectively (P<0.0001). The difference between the two groups was statistically significant (P<0.0001). In conclusion, the increased neopterin levels of HBV carriers might be the indicators of the effect of cellular immunity. This increase might also implicate a background inflammation based on mainly cellular immunity that exists within the liver.