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The processes of lipid peroxidation induced by heavy metals in leaves of woody species under the influence of an industrial enterprise were studied. In the assimilation organs of Populus italica, a high accumulation of most compounds of heavy metals was found (intratissue contamination was over five-fold higher than in the control), with zinc as the most abundant metal. Aesculus hippocastanum in the zone of severe pollution most actively accumulated nickel, while Betula pendula accumulated cadmium. At early stages of leaves development, high rates of intratissue contamination were observed for all species. In the leaves of P. italica, during their morphogenesis, the level of secondary peroxidation products (TBA-active compounds) was lowest among the studied species and did not exceed the control values by more than 1.8 times. This is apparently due to increased intensity of functioning of antioxidant enzyme systems, such as glutathione and ascorbic (Halliwell-Asada cycle), and high phytochelatin and metallothionein biosynthesis in leaves, which stipulate its highest physiological stability to altered environment. Instead, in the leaves of A. hippocastanum and B. pendula with low levels of accumulation of most heavy metals, the content of TBA-active products increased 2.7 and 2.9 times, respectively, comparing to the control. It has been shown that plantations of P. italica in industrial conditions were relatively stable with a total score of assimilation organs, branches and trunk damage up to 1.3, while in A. hippocastanum and B. pendula a longterm effect of pollutants at monitoring sites resulted in 25–40% of leaves damaged by necroses and chloroses. Skeletal branches of both species were affected by rot, crown rarity reached more than 40%, and frost cracks 20–25% larger than in the control occurred. Aesculus hippocastanum and B. pendula are characterized by an unstable qualitative state of 30–60% of individuals which are at various stages of dying or significantly depressed

Background. An objective morphological conclusion about the presence of lesions in the liver can be given only by a qualified clinical morphologist, who operates using the existing international criteria for evaluation of the most typical changes in the liver, including characteristics of necrosis. The aim is to present the morphological characteristics of liver necroses according to the data of intravital liver biopsy in chronic diffuse lesions of various etiologies. Material and methods. Liver biopsy was obtained by performing aspiration liver biopsy in patients with chronic viral, alcoholic, toxic and metabolic liver lesions, whose written informed consent had been obtained. We used the methods of light microscopy including semifine sections and those of electron microscopy. Results. The photomicrographs represent the most typical samples (types) of necroses – coagulation and colliquative, descriptions and images of the changes in the hepatocyte cell nucleus (karyopyknosis, karyorrhexis, karyolysis) and cytoplasm (coagulation and lysis of cytoplasmic proteins, their breakdown with detritus formation and cytolysis). Necroses characteristics corresponding to the international morphological classification are presented in detail. Depending on the area of necroses proliferation, their localization in the liver lobule and severity the following variants of hepatocyte necrosis are distinguished: monocellular; focal (spotted); stepped; zonal; acinar; bridged (port-portal, port-central, centro-central); submassive; massive. The main criteria for the semi-quantitative evaluation of necrosis used in clinical practice in different countries are presented. Conclusions. In vivo morphological diagnostics makes it possible to determine the stage of development, the nature (type) and preferential localization of necrosis, to assume its etiology, to predict the course and outcome of liver damage. An essential factor that increases the quality of diagnosis is the simultaneous morphological study of a single biopsy by light and electron microscopy.

Acute pancreatitis is an inflammatory process with systemic and local repercussions. Most cases are mild with low mortality rate, but 20% of the patients have severe pancreatitis with a mortality rate up to 30%. Through the years the medical community has tried to reach consensus about this disease in order to better understand, classify and treat it. The most important of these has been known as the Atlanta Consensus 1992, in use for many years. However, it has been recently the subject of various proposals for changes and updates, which are discussed in this review article.

We have studied the morphometric indices of needles in Scots pine populations that grow in Bryansk oblast in sites with radioactive contamination long after the Chernobyl accident. The variability in needle weight and length, as well as the fluctuating asymmetry indices and occurrence of necroses and morphoses, were studied in four contaminated and two reference populations of Scots pine in 2011, 2013, and 2014. The exposure of needles in radioactively contaminated sites varied from 7 to 130 mGy/yr. We found brachyblasts with three needles in contaminated Scots pine populations; this morphosis was absent in the reference populations. A dependence of the occurrence of needles damaged by necrosis on the levels of radiation exposure in 2011 was found. However, it was statistically insignificant in other years. The length and weight of needles in contaminated populations differed from the control values; however, the dependence of these indices on the level of radiation exposure was not revealed in the studied range of doses. In 2011 and 2013, the index of fluctuating asymmetry in needle length exceeded the control levels in sites where the absorbed doses were 90 and 130 mGy; this index also tended to grow (statistically significantly in 2011) with an increase in the characteristics of radioactive contamination of the studied plots: the exposure dose rate and the specific activity of 90Sr and 137Cs in cones and of 137Cs in the soil. Therefore, one can observe the consequences of chronic radiation exposure at the organismic level in populations of Scots pine (one of the most radiosensitive plant species) even 25 years after the accident. The data that we obtained in natural habitats confirm the international estimates, according to which the annual chronic radiation exposure of 100 mGy can be considered the limit of safe radiation exposure of natural populations according to morphological and ontogenetic parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The material was collected from the Botanical Garden and the Collegium Medicum Medicinal Plant Garden of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. The investigated species were: lemon balm (Mellisa officinalis L.), common lavender (Lavendula angustifolia Mill.), horsemint (Mentha longifolia L.), sage (Salvia officinalis L.), sweet basil (Ocimum basilicum L.), and wild marjoram (Origanum vulgare L.). The aim of the investigation was to identify fungi causing the death of leaf tissues of herbs from the mint family Lamiaceae. In mycological investigations, 180 fragments of each plant leaves (1,080 dead leaf fragments in total) were placed in a 2% PDA medium. Over 970 colonies of fungi belonging to 48 species were isolated from the dead leaf tissues of the six herb species. Alternaria alternata (toxin-producing), Epicoccum nigrum and Sordaria fimicola were the most frequently isolated. The largest numbers of colonies and species of fungi were isolated from horsemint, while the lowest numbers were from wild marjoram leaves. It was shown that the death of leaves of selected herb species from the Lamiaceae family was caused by various fungi. The results of the mycological analysis confirmed the diversity of species colonizing the leaves of the herbs.

The authors elaborated a new complex methodical approach to the evaluation of necrotic disease of beeches. They used two evaluation scales: a scale for the evaluation of stems and a scale for the evaluation of beech crowns. A four-degree scale for the evaluation of necrotisation of crowns completed the existing five-degree scale for the evaluation of necrotisation of stems. Combination of both these scales into one methodical approach produced the third, complex scale for the evaluation of necrotisation of whole trees. The proposed combined scale is recommended for the monitoring of beech necroses.

The material was collected from the Botanical Garden and the Collegium Medicum Medicinal Plant Garden of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. The investigated species were: lemon balm (Mellisa officinalis L.), common lavender (Lavendula angustifolia Mill.), horsemint (Mentha longifolia L.), sage (Salvia officinalis L.), sweet basil (Ocimum basilicum L.), and wild marjoram (Origanum vulgare L.). The aim of the investigation was to identify fungi causing the death of leaf tissues of herbs from the mint family Lamiaceae. In mycological investigations, 180 fragments of each plant leaves (1,080 dead leaf fragments in total) were placed in a 2% PDA medium. Over 970 colonies of fungi belonging to 48 species were isolated from the dead leaf tissues of the six herb species. Alternaria alternata (toxin-producing), Epicoccum nigrum and Sordaria fimicola were the most frequently isolated. The largest numbers of colonies and species of fungi were isolated from horsemint, while the lowest numbers were from wild marjoram leaves. It was shown that the death of leaves of selected herb species from the Lamiaceae family was caused by various fungi. The results of the mycological analysis confirmed the diversity of species colonizing the leaves of the herbs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: While reviewing the cardiac histopathology and the postmortem arteriography of patients studied at autopsy, a collection of findings was identified in a small proportion of those with ischemic heart disease. These included varying degrees of hypertrophy and left ventricular dilation and severe multifocal atherosclerotic obstruction of the coronary arteries by gross examination. Histology showed multiple small foci of coagulation or contraction-band necrosis in a circumferential, subendocardial pattern; focal replacement fibrosis of varying ages and size; focal atrophy or vacuolization (a marker of chronic ischemia) of surviving myocytes; and marked dilation of the subendocardial vasculature. This collection of findings described here is termed multifocal ischemic necroses of varying age (MINOVA). Review of patient histories showed that the clinical suspicion for the degree of ischemic heart disease did not correlate well with the severity of the pathological findings. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Large numbers of European ash have died in Poland in all age classes during the last ten years. The characteristic symptom occurring on shoots of planted and self-sown seedlings was bark necroses starting from the shoot apex, necrotic buds, or leaf and twig scars. The results showed that in the bud tissue of cold acclimated European ash extracellular and intracellular ice formation occurred at approximately −9 and −32°C, respectively. In deacclimated plants in spring water supercooling is limited by the heterogenous ice nucleation temperature and consequently the cold tolerance is −9 to −4°C for bud tissues and −13 to −9°C for shoots. Isolations of fungi were performed from dead buds and from necroses occurring on the main stem. Alternaria alternata, Fusarium lateritium and Phomopsis scobina were among the fungi occurring in both these organs at frequencies of more than 7%. Cylindrocarpon heteronemum, Diplodia mutila and Tubercularia vulgaris from necroses were only isolated in frequencies; 3.3, 1.2 and 5.4%, respectively. It seems likely that freezing injury is the inciting factor, which combined with fungal colonization manifests itself as fatal damage to European ash buds and shoots. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The investigation of phospholipid composition of cellular walls and plasmatic membranes and the primary structure of DNA molecules of E. coli obtained from healthy and cancer-ill persons, and also the change of primary structure of DNA of model rumor cells of sarcoma 45, before and after its interaction with E. coli in vitro, reveals that: a) Cell walls and plasmatic membranes of E. coli obtained from cancer-ill persons must be more stable to poly ions, in particular to C++ ions, but at the same time on average must have considerably smaller stability, than the membranes of E. coli, obtained from the healthy people; b) The level of methylation of DNA in E. coli from cancer-ill persons is sharply suppressed; c) The bacterium of E. coli, obtained from the healthy people can act in a role of genome inductor, changing primary structure of rumors DNA via its demethylation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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