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Boron (B) toxicity is a considerable mineral nutritional problem for crop production in arid and semi-arid regions worldwide. The effect of mannitol (M) in wheat seedlings that are tolerant and sensitive to excessive B was studied to reduce B toxicity symptoms. Plants were grown in a peat with different concentrations of boric acid (0, 30, 45, 60 mg kg−1) and treated additionally with M (0, 1, 5, 10 g kg−1). Seedlings grown for 8 weeks were harvested for root length, shoot length, and dry-weight measurements and analyzed for B content of leaves. Compared with control groups (no boric acid treatment), B toxicity caused reductions in root length, shoot length, and dry weight of both wheat cultivars. Significant increases on growth parameters were observed under B treatments, the greatest with 1 g kg−1M application in a tolerant bread cultivar. On the other hand, 10 g kg−1M application under 60 mg kg−1B treatment gave also good results on root length in a sensitive durum cultivar. Significant decreases in leaf B content were observed under B treatments with all M applications in both wheat cultivars, the greatest with 5 g kg−1M application. The results suggest that M applications may have a possible role in overcoming in B toxicity in wheat grown in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Serum C-X-C motif chemokine 10 (CXCL10) levels have been shown to be elevated in autoimmune thyroid diseases (AITD). This study sought to determine whether newly diagnosed AITD patients with neuromuscular findings had higher levels of CXCL10 than those without neuromuscular manifestations. Design: A total of 80 patients were recruited to the study, which included treatment-naive hypothyroid Hashimoto's thyroiditis ( n  ==  19) and hyperthyroid Graves' disease (GD; n  ==  21), euthyroid thyroid autoantibody-positive ( n  ==  20) and -negative ( n  ==  20) patients. Methods: All patients underwent a thorough sensorimotor and neuromuscular examination. Serum samples were kept in −−  20°°C for further CXCL10 measurements with ELISA. Results: There was a significant difference with regard to serum CXCL10 levels only between GD and euthyroid thyroid autoantibody-negative patient groups [187(12-418) vs. 37.5(2-542) pg/ml, p  <  0.05]. However, a comparison of newly diagnosed AITD patients with and without neuromuscular manifestations in terms of serum CXCL10 levels yielded no significant difference. When a correlation of existence of a neuromuscular manifestation and serum CXCL10 levels was evaluated, a significantly positive correlation was noted between carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) and serum CXCL10 levels [207 (95-748) pg/ml in CTS-positive vs. 117 (2-977) pg/ml in CTS-negative patients, p  <  0.05]. Conclusions: In this study, from a number of neuromuscular manifestations, only the existence of CTS correlated with significantly higher CXCL10 levels in the whole study group. Further studies with larger numbers of patients with autoimmune-based hyper- and hypothyroidism may better clarify the hypothesis regarding a relationship between serum CXCL10 levels and neuromuscular manifestations of AITD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]