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Glutenin is a group of polymeric gluten proteins. Glutenin molecules consist of glutenin subunits linked together with disulphide bonds and having higher (HMM-GS) and lower (LMM-GS) molecular mass. The main objective of this study is the evaluation of the influence of HMM-GS on flour processing properties. Seven bread wheat genotypes with contrasting quality attributes and different HMM-GS composition were analyzed during three years. The composition and quantity of HMM-GS were determined by SDS-PAGE and RP-HPLC, respectively. The quality diversity among genotypes was estimated by the analysis of wheat grain, and flour and bread quality parameters. The presence of HMM glutenin subunits 1 and 2* at Glu-A1 and the subunits 5+10 at Glu-D1 loci, as well as a higher proportion of total HMM-GS, had a positive effect on wheat quality. Cluster analysis of the three groups of data (genotype and HMM-GS, flour and bread quality, and dough rheology) yielded the same hierarchical structure for the first top three levels, and similarity of the corresponding dendrograms was proved by the principal eigenvalues of the corresponding Euclidian distance matrices. The obtained similarity in classification based on essentially different types of measurements reflects strong natural association between genetic data, product quality and physical properties. Principal component analysis (PCA) was applied to effectively reduce large data set into lower dimensions of latent variables amenable for the analysis. PCA analysis of the total set of data (15 variables) revealed a very strong interrelationship between the variables. The first three PCA components accounted for 96 % of the total variance, which was significant to the level of 0.05 and was considered as the level of experimental error. These data imply that the quality of wheat cultivars can be contributed to HMM-GS data and should be taken into account in breeding programs assisted by computer models with the aim to improve flour technological quality.

This paper gives a solution for improving e-Government services based on a hybrid approach: multilayered clustering of e-government documents based on fuzzy concepts and application of different text similarity measures. The goal is to reduce time between citizen's questions and government feedback, either completely eliminating or at least minimizing the deployment of subject matter experts. After the problem description, the paper describes step by step the functionality of the proposed system. At the end, concluding remarks emphasize some important features of the given approach and potential for future research.

The present paper is focused on rheology dough properties of winter wheat cultivars in relation to bread crumb properties. The rheological characteristics of wheat fl our were evaluated by using Farinograph and Extensograph tests. The image analysis for bread crumb grain assessment was applied as alternative technique for more rapid and efficient measurement of bread characteristics. The highest significant positive correlation (P

Near Infrared Spectroscopy has been used for the last 25 years for quality testing of material from wheat breeding programs. As a nondestructive and rapid routine method for the determination of grain constituents, this technique allows breeders to screen large number of lines for one or more characteristics (moisture, protein, fat, starch, etc.) at a time. A set of 195 different wheat samples was obtained from several wheat cultivars from 2002 harvest, grown at different sites throughout Croatia. The two different methods were used for the determination of wet gluten content.As NIT spectroscopy is used for determination wet gluten content on "Infratec 1241 Grain Analyzer" since 2002, the aim of this paper was to compare the wet gluten results obtained by this instrument with standard Gluten index method results. According to the results for wet gluten content obtained by "Infratec 1241 Grain Analyzer" and by Gluten index method it can be concluded that they are comparable. Considering its advantages over standard methods, including its wide-range calibration, NIT represents a good candidate for evaluation of wet gluten quantity in the future, as it is used for protein and moisture determination in wheat grain today.

Two Croatian (Žitarka, Srpanjka) and two Serbian (Dragana, Bastijana) winter wheat cultivars differing in processing quality were analyzed and compared. Samples were collected at the experimental fields of the Agricultural institute Osijek and Institute of the Field and Vegetable Crops Novi Sad in 2009. Flour and dough quality was defined through the analysis of indirect quality parameters and dough rheological properties. Cultivars Srpanjka and Bastijana were characterized as cultivars with better gluten properties and have shown better mixing and elasticity dough behaviour in comparison to cultivars Žitarka and Dragana. Gluten proteins composition and amount have been examined by SDS- PAGE and RP-HPLC method. The higher amount of HMW and LMW-GS subunits, lower Gli/Glu ratio and presence of favourable HMW-GS composition have contributed to higher gluten strength and consequently better bread making quality.

Background and Purpose: The objective of this study was to estimate the effect of high molecularweight glutenin subunits(HMW-GS) composition of the Glu-1 loci on the quality of winter wheat cultivars created at the Agricultural Institute Osijek. Materials and Methods: Ten winter wheat cultivars were grown in 4 different locations during two years in a randomized complete block (RCB) experimental design with three repetitions at each location. Samples were collected and subjected to quality analysis and determination of HMW-GS composition by sodium dodecyl sulphate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis SDS-PAGE). Results: Considering theHMW-GS composition, the most frequent subunit at the Glu-A1 locus was N, at the Glu-B1 locus 7+9 and at the Glu-D1 locus 2+12. The analyzed cultivar Demetra, with subunits 5+10 at the Glu-D1 locus, has shown the best bread-making quality. Among cultivars with subunits 2+12 at the Glu-D1 locus, the cultivars with subunits 7+8 at the Glu- B1 locus have shown on average better characteristics of gluten strength with regard to higher values of Gluten Index and resistance to (exstensibility?) ratio. The results of the linear correlation between quality parameters and HMW-GS composition, expressed as the Glu-1 score, have shown the most significant (P

Background and Purpose: The purpose of this research was to estimate general (GCA) and specific combining ability (SCA) for grain yield, oil content and oil yield of sunflower inbred lines, to estimate the portion of genetic and additive component of variance, to determine relationships between inbred lines, two-line (SC) and three-line hybrids (TWC), and to determine perspective parental lines and hybrids. Materials and Methods: Six inbred lines were used in the research, 15 experimental SC (male sterile) hybrids, 15 experimental TWC hybrids and 3 recognized hybrids. Obtained results were processed by analysis of variance, linear correlation analysis, Griffing’s diallel analysis, and estimation of genetic and additive variance. Results: OS-1 line had the largestGCA effect for grain yield, oil content and oil yield. OS-1 A x OS-6 B combination had the highest SCA effect for grain yield, as well as for oil content and oil yield. Genetic variance was larger than environmental variance, and additive variance was larger than dominant for all traits. High significant positive correlations were found for oil content among SC and their TWChybrids. Line OS-1 transferred its positive effects for oil content and yield in TWC hybrids. Conclusions: Line OS-1 has desirable agronomic traits and could be used in future breeding process aimed at genetic improvement of sunflower. Additive variance was greater for all investigation traits. Lines with the best GCA for oil content kept retained? these characteristics in SC and TWC hybrids. Lines with the best GCA did not give (produce?) hybrids of the best SCA and opposite. In the case of grain and oil yield a significant correlation between SC and their TWC hybrids did not exist, although it did for oil content. The best hybrid for commercial production was (OS-1A x OS-5B) x RF-28.

The monomeric gliadin fraction is important in contributing to bread making properties because of its viscous characteristics and interaction with polymeric glutenins. In this study 28 wheat genotypes grown at the experimental field of the Agricultural Institute Osijek in 2007 were analyzed. Composition and relative content of gliadin components has been examined by RP-HPLC method. Flour quality was defined through analysis of protein and wet gluten content, sedimentation value and gluten index, while dough rheological testing included two rheological methods, a farinographic and an extensographic. The proportion of "sulfur-poor" gliadins, ω-5 and ω-1, 2, ranged from 0.15 to 3.23 % and from 6.57 to 21.11 %, respectively. The proportion of dominant ײsulfur-richײ gliadins, α- and γ-, ranged from 38.89 to 55.18 % and from 30.09 to 52.80 %, respectively. According to obtained correlations coefficients (P≤0.05), the most pronounced relationship was found between α- and γ- gliadins and wheat quality attributes.

The National Science Foundation project "Detection and tracking of biological markers for early therapeutic intervention in sporadic Alzheimer's disease" is a large-scale 3-year project (2012-2014) designed to determine the diagnostic accuracy of potentially useful biological markers for discrimination among subjects with Alzheimer's disease (AD), mild cognitive impairment (MCI), non-demented healthy controls (HC), and patients with other primary causes of dementia. To identify those patients most likely to benefit from therapeutic intervention, our ultimate long-term objective is to develop reliable diagnostic criteria for detection of preclinical stages of AD. Preliminary findings obtained on 126 patients, of which 54 were patients with probable AD, 30 with MCI, 9 with vascular dementia (VaD), 4 with Lewy body disease (LBD), 11 with frontotemporal dementias (FTD) and 18 healthy controls will be presented. Cut-off levels for the CSF concentrations of amyloid β1-42 (Aβ42) and total tau protein (t-tau) were derived from receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis, when the sum of specificity and sensitivity was maximized. Both CSF t-tau and Aβ42 have recently been added to the clinical diagnostic criteria for MCI and AD (McKhann et al., Alzheimers Dement., 2011). Our preliminary results showed that 23.3% of MCI subjects had Aβ42 and t-tau levels as patients with probable AD, while 53, 3% of them had either Aβ42 lower or t-tau higher than cut-off levels. As a follow-up period of at least 5-10 years is needed to assess reliably MCI patients who will develop AD (the annual conversion rate from MCI to AD in specialist clinical settings is approximately 9.6%, Mitchell and Shiri-Feshki, Acta Psychiatr. Scand., 2009), only then will we be able to conclude if defined cut-off levels indeed distinguish MCI patients that will progress to AD from those who will not. Additionally, phosphorylated tau (p-tau231) measured in 36 subjects was shown to distinguishing AD from healthy controls with sensitivity of 76.5% and specificity of 80% (for details, see the poster presentation of Babić et al.). In view of the fact that the use of clinical diagnosis instead of neuropathological diagnosis lead to a 14-17% underestimation of the biomarker accuracy (Toledo et al., Acta Neuropathol., 2012), these results emphasize the critical importance of CSF biomarker standardization to increase the accuracy for the early diagnosis of neurodegenerative diseases.

Cilj rada bio je dobiti uvid u strategije suočavanja kojima se koriste njegovatelji člana obitelji osobe oboljele od Alzheimerove bolesti obzirom na spol njegovatelja i duljinu skrbi o oboljelom. Metode: Broj sudionika istraživanja bio je 38, a raspon dobi kretao se od 26 do 88 godina (M=61, 1 ; SD=14, 2). Prema bračnom statusu, 65, 8% ispitanika je u braku, 2, 6% je razvedeno, 2, 6% su udovci/ice, 7, 9% živi s partnerom/icom, te 21, 1% ispitanika su samci. Obzirom na radni status, 42, 1% ispitanika su umirovljenici, 42, 1% je zaposleno, 15, 8% nije u radnom statusu. Prosječna duljina njegovateljske skrbi je 4, 5 godina, a dob oboljelih kreće se od 55 do 99 godina Za prikaz rezultata korištene su mjere deskriptivne statistike, dok su razlike testirane Hi kvadrat testom. Podaci su prikupljeni tijekom 2008. godine na području Hrvatske anketiranjem njegovatelja u Udruzi za osobe oboljele od Alzheimerove bolesti i poštanskim putem u suradnji s liječnikom specijalistom. U istraživanju je korišten Upitnik strategija suočavanja obitelji u krizi (F-COPES) koji sadrži 30 čestica kojima se ispituju strategije suočavanja i rješavanja problema korištenih od strane člana/ova obitelji. Rezultati: Nema statistički značajnih razlika u odgovorima muških i ženskih njegovatelja, međutim zamjetan je trend da žene u nešto većoj mjeri nego muškarci kao strategije suočavanja koriste socijalnu podršku i duhovnu potporu. Nije utvrđeno postojanje statistički značajnih razlika u strategijama suočavanja obzirom na duljinu skrbi, iako je zamjetno da se s povećanjem godina skrbi povećava korištenje strategije traženja duhovne potpore, a smanjuje pasivno/izbjegavajuća procjena situacije. Utvrđeno je da njegovatelji s povećanjem duljine skrbi sve više koriste adaptivne, problemu usmjerene strategije suočavanja nastojeći pronaći rješenje koje će im omogućiti prevladavanje postojeće krize. Zaključak: Najčešće korištena strategija suočavanja njegovatelja u procesu skrbi za osobu oboljelu od Alzheimerove bolesti je redefiniranje situacije u cilju praktičnijeg načina prihvaćanja situacije dok je najmanje korištena strategija mobilizacija obitelji. Dobiveni rezultati ukazuju na potrebu aktiviranja resursa obitelji, zajednice te društva u cilju unapređenja kvalitete skrbi i života oboljelog i njegove obitelji.

Introduction: Some of our previous findings suggested that hyperphosphorylation of tau protein in Alzheimer's disease (AD) might result from the inapt reactivation of fetal plasticity mechanisms. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine phosphorylation of tau protein, recognized by the AT8-immunoreactivity (AT8-ir) during several stages of fetal development, and to compare it with AT8-ir in normal elderly, mildly cognitively impaired (MCI) and AD brains. Material and Methods: The anti-human tau antibody AT8 was employed in indirect-immunocytochemistry and Western blot, on samples of fifteen fetal human brains - two adult control and two MCI, as well as ten AD cases. AT8 antibody reacts with tau only when multiple sites around Ser202, including Ser199, Ser202 and Thr205, are phosphorylated. Thus, AT8-ir is useful in detecting phosphorylation of Ser202/Thr205, a target epitope for proline-directed kinases. In addition, AT8-ir permits the evaluation of neuronal changes well before the actual formation of neurofibrillary tangles and neuropil threads. Results: Specific AT8-ir was found already at 10th week of gestation (w.g.), which was the earliest fetal stage examined. The most prominent AT8-ir was found in the lower subplate zone at about 18th w.g. and in the upper subplate around 20th w.g., then gradually diminished and disappeared completely to the end of 32nd w.g. During mid-gestation, the fornix as well as the subset of callosal commissural fibers was unambiguously AT8-ir, while the internal capsule remained unstained in this period. Although AT8-ir in fetal brain was distinct, we did not detect any AT8-ir structures in neuronal soma or dendrites. In comparison with control adult cases, many entorhinal and hippocampal neurons of MCI brains, as well as some neurons of the temporal isocortex, presented initial cytoskeletal changes such as AT8-ir tortuous varicose apical dendrites and curved, thickened dendrites. Beaded- or rod-like AT8-ir was most conspicuous in the perforant fascicle and CA1 axons projecting into the subiculum. In the AD brain AT8-immunoreactive neurons were characterized by coarse AT8-ir granules, but most tangle-bearing neurons were not AT8-ir. Conclusions: The present work provides data on the transient, zone- and fiber tract-specific tau phosphorylation during axonal outgrowth and elongation. Results obtained in MCI and AD cases clearly show a layer- and stage-specific pattern of tau hyperphosphorylation during the progression of Alzheimer's disease. Based on these findings we suggest that some proline-directed kinases are abnormally reactivated during the early course of AD.

The work presented in this paper focused on changes of E-cadherin (CDH1) gene in a set of 12 brain metastases. The gene product is a component of adherens junctions, but is also indirectly involved in the Wnt signalling. Loss of function of E-cadherin tumor-suppressor protein correlates with increased invasiveness and metastasis of tumors, resulting in it being referred to as the "suppressor of invasion gene". PCR amplification of tetranucleotide GATA polymorphism (D16S752) linked to CDH1 gene was used to test loss of heterozygosity (LOH) of E-cadherin in brain metastases samples. The marker D16S752 was chosen from the Genome DataBase. Heterozygous samples were visualized on Spreadex EL 300 gels (Elchrom scientific, Switzerland), stained with SyberGold (Molecular Probes, Netherlands). Absence or significant decrease in the intensity of one of D16S752 alleles in metastasis compared to the autologous blood sample was considered as LOH of CDH1 gene. The results of our analysis showed LOH of CDH1 gene in 33% of metastases examined. Five metastases originated from primary lung carcinomas, two from bronchial carcinomas, two from breast carcinomas and three from colon carcinomas. There were 7 male and 5 female patients, and their mean age at diagnosis was 57.6 years. Two LOHs were found in metastases from bronchial carcinomas, one in metastasis from breast carcinoma, and one LOH in metastasis from colon carcinoma. Genetic changes of CDH1 are present in brain metastases that we investigated. Our findings may contribute to better understanding of brain metastases’ genetic profile. We consider our finding a small but relevant contribution to understanding pathophysiological mechanisms of brain metastases formation. Further investigation regarding this gene on a bigger sample should be performed in future to confirm our suggestion. Novel genes and molecular candidates involved in mechanisms of invasion will offer improvement in comprehension, diagnosis and treatment of these diseases.

In this study the problem of organization of mental lexicon is reduced to the study of prefixation as a productive part of derivational morphology in Croatian: are prefixed words stored as unanalyzable items or prefixes and roots are stored separately in the mental lexicon? The method of ERP is used in a lexical decision task with four groups of words: words, pseudo-words, prefixed words and prefixed pseudowords. The results do not show the pattern obtained in e.g. Dutch or English where reduced N400 effect was obtained in the prefixed pseudo-words condition. Instead, prefixed prefixed words and pseudo-words show LAN-P600 pattern (with the larger effect for prefixed pseudo-words), while words and pseudo-words elicit typical N400 effect. This results are interpreted in terms of two distinct mechanisms of lexical retrieval.

Autism is a neurodevelopmental syndrome with onset in early childhood. The spectrum of symptoms varies among individuals, but includes some shared features: disturbances in social interactions, language and communication, and presence of stereotyped behaviors. Prevalence of autism in general population is 3-6 per 1000, but there is a high recurrence risk of 2-8 % in siblings of the diseased, and up to 92% in monozygotic twins, pointing to the strong genetic component of this disorder. According to the present state of knowledge, the cause of autism involves multiple genes, interacting with each other and with environmental factors to lead to the alterations in early brain development, affecting primarily frontal and temporal cortex, cerebellum and limbic regions. In the search for the genetic basis of autism association studies, linkage analyses, and studies on animal models have been employed. Candidate genes indicated through association studies belong to the three major categories: regulators of brain development, regulators of neurotransmission, and regulators of cellular growth and development. Linkage analyses have consistently indicated several candidate regions: 7q, 2q, 16p, 17q, 15q. Also, using brain lesions, early intoxications/infections, or targeted inactivation of genes, several animal models displaying some traits of autism have been developed. So far, through a combination of the mentioned approaches four major candidate genes have been suggested:  3 subunit of the GABAA receptor, serotonin (5HT) transporter, reelen and engrailed-2. Several lines of evidence indicate that the alterations in 5HT neurotransmitter system might represent one of the biological substrates of autism. 5HT plays an important role in neurogenesis by controlling growth and maturation of target regions and its own neurons, pharmacological manipulation of 5HT transmission influences autistic symptoms, functional studies have shown alterations in brain 5HT synthesis capacity, while elevated 5HT levels in blood have been consistently found in about 30% of the patients. It is assumed that the presence of high levels of 5HT in blood during fetal development, before the blood-brain barrier is formed, could inhibit development of 5HT neurons and lead to the anatomical and functional alterations of the brain, typical for autism. Still, the mechanisms that lead to hyperserotonemia, the relationship between high blood 5HT level and 5HT dysfunction in the central nervous system, and its effect on development of autism are not understood. With the current project we are trying to unravel the nature of the relationship between hyperserotonemia and autism and, thereby, contribute to the testing of the above-mentioned hypothesis.

Abnormal hyperphosphorylation of the microtubule-associated protein tau and its incorporation into neurofibrillary tangles are major hallmarks of the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Using monoclonal antibodies, different tau phosphoepitopes can be sensitively detected in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). A significant elevation in the levels of tau protein phosphorylated at threonine 231 (p-tau231) and threonine 181 (p-tau181) has been recently observed in CSF (Hampel H et al., Arch. Gen. Psychiat. 2004 ; 61:95-102 ; de Leon MJ et al., J. Intern. Med. 2004 ; 256:205-223). CSF levels of p-tau231 were measured using a specific antibody against the 231 tau phosphoepitope by Western blot (using an antibody provided by Peter Davies, New York, USA) in a group of 15 individuals. CSF levels of p-tau181 were measured by ELISA (Innotest Phospho-Tau (181P), Innogenetics, Ghent, Belgium) in a group of 63 individuals. Both study groups were composed of patients with a clinical diagnosis of AD, with possible AD, and nondemented controls. CSF levels of p-tau231 and p-tau181 were significantly elevated in patients with definitive AD compared to nondemented controls. Our results mostly confirmed earlier findings that p-tau231 and p-tau181 may be useful biological markers of AD, which could improve early detection and tracking disease progression.

Studies of biological characteristics, personality traits or elements in behaviour in the premorbid phase of psychiatric disorders are important as relevant facts or predictors in early diagnostic procedure both in clinical and in forensic practice, as well as in effective prevention and treatment for the individuals who are at risk of developing the so-called major psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia or depression as well as the trauma-related disorders (1, 2, 3). The aim of this study was to investigate the connection between some sociopathological characteristics in premorbid behaviour as possible risk factors in the development of PTSD. compensation-seeking war veterans who experienced combat and war stress in the period from 1991 – 1995. They were examined by the psychiatric expert to confirm the diagnosis of PTSD and related disorders for compensation- related purposes, as required by the Law on Rights of War Veterans and Their Family Members adopted in 2001. The expert examination included a structured diagnostic procedure and an analysis of military service data. Their behaviour in the premorbid phase was also assessed and was categorised as follows: 1) socially adequate, and 2) socially inadequate, that is, sociopathological, which was further categorised as follows: behaviour issues in school, problems during military service, misdemeanour charges, and criminal offence. In the first group there were 303 (73.2%) veterans who did not report any kind of sociopathological behaviour in the premorbid phase and in the second group there were 112 (26.98%) veterans who reported having some characteristics of sociopathological behaviour in the premorbid phase. The mean age in the first group was 42.71 +/- 7.58 years, and their combat activity was 28.87 +/- 20.29 months. The mean age in the second group of veterans was 43.44 +/- 8.08 years. The mean duration of their combat activity was 28.93 +/- 20.05 months. There were no significant difference between these two groups according to age and combat activity. According to some socio-demographic characteristics there was statistical differences between these two groups of veterans related to education ; there were 30 (9.9%) veterans who finished secondary school in the first group (p=0.046) and 72 (64.3%) veterans who finished school for skilled labour in the second group (p=0.032). There were no statistically differences according to employment status, marital status and parenting between these two groups.In the group of war veterans (112) who reported sociopathological behaviour in the premorbid phase 38 (33.9%) of them were diagnosed with PTSD without and PTSD with comorbid diagnoses and in the group who did not report sociopathological behaviour (303), 101 (33.3%) veterans were diagnosed with PTSD without and PTSD with comorbid diagnoses. There were no statistically significant differences between these two groups related to the diagnostic categories mentioned here (p=0.909). Eleven (9.8%) veterans were diagnosed with partial PTSD without and partial PTSD with comorbid diagnoses in the group with sociopathological behaviour in the premorbid phase, and 34 (11.2%) veterans were diagnosed with the same diagnoses in the group of veterans without sociopathological behaviour. There were no statistically significant differences between these two groups related to diagnostic categories (p= 0.685). In the group of war veterans with sociopathological elements in behaviour in the pre-war period the diagnoses of personality disorder and of personality disorder with comorbidity were diagnosed more often than in the other group ; 15.2% in the first group and 5.6% in the second group (p=0.002), which was statistically significant.There were no statistical differences related to diagnostical categories between subgroups related to various forms of sociopathological behaviour within the second group. War veterans who reported having some characteristics of sociopathological behaviour and war veterans who did not report such kind of behaviour characteristics in the premorbid period do not differ between themselves in relation to diagnoses PTSD without and PTSD with comorbid diagnoses and partial PTSD without and partial PTSD with comorbid diagnoses.

Introduction: Frontotemporal dementia is the second most common form of dementia in people under the age of 65 years after Alzheimer’ s disease (AD), clinically and pathologically distinct from AD (Liscic et al. 2007). Clinically, cases of frontotemporal lobar degeneration with ubiquitin inclusions (FTLD-U) present with behavioral and language problems and may also have motor neuron disease. Neuropathologically, there is frontal and temporal lobe atrophy, neuronal loss, microvacuolation, and gliosis in affected areas. The hallmark lesions of FTLD-U are: ubiquitin-positive, tau- and α -synuclein-negative inclusions. Recently, mutations in the progranulin (PGRN) gene were linked to chromosome 17q21 (Baker et al. 2006 ; Cruts et al. 2006). The majority of these families with PGRN mutations contain ubiquitin and TDP-43-positive inclusions. Progranulin is not a component of the inclusions (Neumann et al. 2006). Methods: Immunohistochemistry ; DNA sequencing. Results: We report on two FTLD-U kindreds: 1. Hereditary Dysphasic Disinhibition Dementia-2(HDDD2) with prominent changes in behavior and language deficits with a missense mutation, Ala-9-Asp within the signal peptide (Mukherjee et al. 2006), and 2. HDDD1, another Kindred with personality changes, disinhibition, nonfluent dysphasia followed by memory loss. There is a novel pathogenic PGRN mutation c.5913 A>G (IVS6-2 A>G) in the HDDD1 kindred (Behrens et al. 2007). Conclusion: Both, HDDD2 and HDDD1 kindreds are FTLD-U with PGRN mutations. Different mutations in the same PGRN gene cause clinical and neuropathological heterogeneity in FTLD-U. These important findings may provide a genetic and molecular basis for FTLD-U caused by PGRN mutations. References: 1.Liscic RM, et al. Arch Neurol 2007 ; 64:535-540. 2.Baker M, et al. Nature 2006 ; 442:916-919. 3.Cruts M, et al. Nature 2006 ; 442:920-924. 4.Mukherjee O, et al. Ann Neurol 2006 ; 60:314-322. 5.Behrens MI, et al. Alzheimer Dis Assoc Disord 2007 ; 21:1-7. 6.Neumann M, et al. Science 2006 ; 314: 130-133.

During the last decade researchers concerned with specific language impairment (SLI) started to examine the role of working memory as a potential factor in explaining the problems some children have in language processing. The obtained data suggest that the problems SLI children have in lexical/morphological learning and sentence processing are associated with the deficit in their working memory functioning (Montgomery, 2003). In this study working memory functioning is investigated by means of combining two different on-line methods. The Sternberg memory task using verbal and nonverbal stimuli was used to asses working memory functioning in two groups of children: SLI children and typical developing children. Electrophysiological recordings of brain activity and reaction time data were collected while the participants performed the task. Different type of stimuli and different load of the memory sets were manipulated in order to investigate the specifities of working memory functioning. Levels of memory load difficulty and specific stimuli type yielded different electrophysiological patterns and reaction times latencies. Significant differences in results were obtained in a between groups comparison. Although it is not possible to state the direct causational link between working memory deficit and language impairment, the obtained results together with the current available results of other studies suggests that a deficit in working memory could be a clinical marker of SLI.

Research carried out in this paper focused on changes of three genes, E-cadherin (CDH1), adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) and beta-catenin (CTNNB1) in a palette of 50 central nervous system tumors. All gene products are components of adherens junctions, but are also involved in the Wnt signalling pathway. PCR amplification of tetranucleotide GATA polymorphism (D16S752) linked to CDH1 gene was used to test loss of heterozygosity (LOH) of E-cadherin in brain tumor samples. Instability of the APC gene was investigated by PCR/LOH using RFLP and changes of beta-catenin were tested by heteroduplex method. The results of our analysis showed LOH of CDH1 gene in 31% of meningiomas examined. One LOH was also found in a single case of germinoma, while other tumor types did not demonstrate changes of the CDH1 gene. Fourteen samples (29.2%) with changes of the APC gene were observed out of 48 heterozygous patients. The changes were distributed to: 33.3% of glioblastomas, 27% of meningiomas, 1 LOH in five informative astocytomas (20%), and 1 in six informative neurinomas (17%). One oligoastrocytoma showed LOH at exon 11 and one medulloblastoma had allelic imbalance at both exons. There were 5 samples (10%) showing heteroduplexes encompassed in β -catenin’ s exon 3. Potential mutations were confined to two meningiomas, an astrocytoma, a glioblastoma, and a germinoma. Conclusion. The results of this research suggests that genetic changes of the wnt components are involved in brain tumor genesis. Changes of E-cadherin are involved in meningiomas, while changes of APC gene are more commonly distributed among different tumor types, with glioblastomas showing the highest percentage of changes.

Distribution of complex gangliosides extremly varies between fish, amphibian and reptile brains, but becomes invariable from birds up to higher vertebrates. Variability of ganglioside distribution correlates well with the potential for regeneration, being highest for the fish brain expressing only GT1b and approaching zero in central nervous system of bird. The potential for regeneration is better correlated with appearance of GM1 in myelin then with the distribution of GD1a and GT1b which are putative glycolipid ligands for MAG and inhibitors of regeneration.