Tumour cells are known to be highly glycolytic, thus producing high amounts of lactic acid. Monocarboxylate transporters (MCTs), by promoting the efflux of the accumulating acids, constitute one of the most important mechanisms in the maintenance of tumour intracellular pH.Since data concerning MCT expression in colorectal carcinomas (CRC) are scarce and controversial, the present study aimed to assess the expressions of MCT1, 2, and 4 in a well characterized series of CRC and assess their role in CRC carcinogenesis. CRC samples (126 cases) were analyzed for MCT1, MCT2, and MCT4 immunoexpression and findings correlated with clinico-pathological parameters. Expression of all MCT isoforms in tumour cells was significantly increased when compared to adjacent normal epithelium. Remarkably, there was a significant gain of membrane expression for MCT1 and MCT4 and loss of plasma membrane expression for MCT2 in tumour cells. Plasma membrane expression of MCT1 was directly related to the presence of vascular invasion. This is the larger study on MCT expression in CRC and evaluates for the first time its clinico-pathological significance. The increased expression of these transporters suggests an important role in CRC, which might justify their use, especially MCT1 and MCT4, as targets in CRC drug therapy.

The solubility of glycine and dl-alanine in aqueous systems of KCl and Na2SO4 at 298.15 K was measured at different salt concentrations using the analytical gravimetric method. The experimental data obtained in this work and those previously reported in the literature for the same systems were compared, and it was possible to show a big discrepancy for the water−KCl−amino acid systems and a very satisfactory agreement for the water−Na2SO4−amino acid systems. The solubility data from this work and the activity coefficients data from literature were used to explore the potentialities of the Pitzer−Simonson−Clegg equations for the thermodynamic description of the ternary systems water−KCl with glycine or dl-alanine at 298.15 K. This model, with five adjustable parameters, gives a global root-mean-square deviation of 0.0036 for the correlation of the activity coefficients and 0.63 g/(kg of water) for the solubility in those ternary systems.

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Analysis of the macromolecular crowding effects in polymer solutions show that the excluded volume effect is not the only factor affecting the behavior of biomolecules in a crowded environment. The observed inconsistencies are commonly explained by the so-called soft interactions, such as electrostatic, hydrophobic, and van der Waals interactions, between the crowding agent and the protein, in addition to the hard nonspecific steric interactions. We suggest that the changes in the solvent properties of aqueous media induced by the crowding agents may be the root of these "soft" interactions. To check this hypothesis, the solvatochromic comparison method was used to determine the solvent dipolarity/polarizability, hydrogen-bond donor acidity, and hydrogen-bond acceptor basicity of aqueous solutions of different polymers (dextran, poly(ethylene glycol), Ficoll, Ucon, and polyvinylpyrrolidone) with the polymer concentration up to 40% typically used as crowding agents. Polymer-induced changes in these features were found to be polymer type and concentration specific, and, in case of polyethylene glycol (PEG), molecular mass specific. Similarly sized polymers PEG and Ucon producing different changes in the solvent properties of water in their solutions induced morphologically different α-synuclein aggregates. It is shown that the crowding effects of some polymers on protein refolding and stability reported in the literature can be quantitatively described in terms of the established solvent features of the media in these polymers solutions. These results indicate that the crowding agents do induce changes in solvent properties of aqueous media in crowded environment. Therefore, these changes should be taken into account for crowding effect analysis.

Solid tumor cells are known to be highly glycolytic and, to prevent apoptosis by cellular acidosis, cells increase proton efflux through pH regulators, such as monocarboxylate transporters (MCTs). However, the role of these membrane proteins in solid tumor development and survival is not fully understood. We aimed to evaluate the expression of the MCT isoforms 1, 2, and 4 in a large series of cervical lesions (neoplastic and non-neoplastic) and assess its clinical-pathologic significance. The series analyzed included 29 chronic cervicitis, 30 low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions, 32 high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions, 49 squamous cell carcinomas, 51 adenocarcinomas, and 30 adenosquamous carcinomas of the uterine cervix. Analysis of the expression of MCT isoforms 1, 2, and 4 was performed by immunohistochemistry with specific antibodies. Immunoreactions were evaluated both qualitatively and semiquantitatively. We found a significant increase in MCT expression from preinvasive to invasive squamous lesions and from normal glandular epithelium to adenocarcinomas. This is the first study evaluating the significance of MCT expression in lesions of the uterine cervix, including invasive carcinomas, and the results found herein led us to believe that these membrane proteins are involved in the progression to invasiveness in uterine cervix carcinoma.

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Partition behavior of nine small organic compounds and six proteins was examined in poly(ethylene glycol)-8000-sodium sulfate aqueous two-phase systems containing 0.5M osmolyte (sorbitol, sucrose, trehalose, TMAO) and poly(ethylene glycol)-10000-sodium sulfate system, all in 0.01M sodium phosphate buffer, pH 6.8. The differences between the solvent properties of the coexisting phases (solvent dipolarity/polarizability, hydrogen bond donor acidity, and hydrogen bond acceptor basicity) were characterized with solvatochromic dyes using the solvatochromic comparison method. Differences between the electrostatic properties of the phases were determined by analysis of partitioning of sodium salts of dinitrophenylated (DNP-) amino acids with aliphatic alkyl side-chain. It was found out that the partition coefficient of all compounds examined (including proteins) may be described in terms of solute-solvent interactions. The results obtained in the study show that solute-solvent interactions of nonionic organic compounds and proteins in polyethylene glycol-sodium sulfate aqueous two-phase system differ from those in polyethylene glycol-dextran system.

Partition of 12 nonionic organic compounds in aqueous PEG-8000-Na(2)SO(4) two-phase system was examined. Effects of four salt additives (NaCl, NaSCN, NaClO(4), and NaH(2)PO(4)) in the concentration range from 0.027 up to ca. 1.9 M on binodal curve of PEG-sulfate two-phase system and solute partitioning were explored. It was found that different salt additives at the relatively high concentrations display different effects on both phase separation and partition of various nonionic solutes. Analysis of the results indicates that the PEG-Na(2)SO(4) ATPS with the up to 0.215 M NaCl concentration may be viewed as similar to the ATPS without NaCl in terms of the Collander equation's predictive ability of the partitioning behavior of nonionic compounds. All ATPS with each of the salt additive used at the concentration of 0.027 M may be viewed as similar to each other as the Collander equation holds for partition coefficients of nonionic solutes in these ATPS. Collander equation is valid also for the compounds examined in the ATPS with additives of NaSCN and NaClO(4) at the concentrations up to 0.215 M. The observed similarity between these ATPS might be explained by the similar effects of these two salts on the water structure. At concentrations of the salt additives exceeding the aforementioned values, different effects of salt additives on partitioning of various nonionic solutes are displayed. In order to explain these effects of salt additives it is necessary to examine the intensities of different solute-solvent interactions in these ATPS within the framework of the so-called Linear Solvation Energy Relationship (LSER) model.