No abstract

When rats are treated daily with reserpine or maintained at 4 degrees C, the level of a specific RNA coding for tyrosine hydroxylase is elevated in the adrenal gland. The increase in this specific RNA temporally precedes and is quantitatively equal to the increase in adrenal tyrosine hydroxylase enzyme activity elicited by these treatments. These results suggest that prolonged stress may lead to changes in the levels of specific RNA species in the adrenal gland.

No abstract

Segregation at one of the loci controlling tiller-base pigmentation was studied to determine the mode of inheritance in tetraploid hybrids between Lolium perenne and L. multiflorum. The results could be explained by tetrasomic inheritance and thus did not support previous reports of a degree of preferential chromosome pairing in this material. However, double reduction and aneuploidy may to some extent have masked any tendency to disomic segregation brought about by preferential pairing. Moreover, there was significant heterogeneity between families in the segregation ratios which may indicate genetically controlled differences in pairing behaviour. The results are related to previous cytological and genetic studies.

1 there is convincing evidence that aliskiren, in addition to losartan, has a significant antiproteinuric effect, which supports the potential therapeutic role of a renin inhibitor in diabetic nephropathy. However, the authors do not indicate specifically the type of calcium-channel blocker the patients were concomitantly taking. Non-dihydropyridine calcium-channel blockers, such as diltiazem, have been shown to have antiproteinuric and renoprotective properties. 2 Since more than 50% of the patients were taking a calcium-channel blocker, this may have partially contributed to the observed decrease in proteinuria. Furthermore, the superiority of telmisartan over losartan in reducing proteinuria in patients with diabetes was recently reported. 3 We question whether aliskiren would have resulted in the same magnitude of reduction in proteinuria had telmisartan been used instead of losartan.