Oxidative stress is believed to be associated with both postmenopausal disorders and cataract development. Previously, we have demonstrated that rosmarinic and sinapic acids, which are diet-derived antioxidative phenolic acids, counteracted some disorders induced by estrogen deficiency. Other studies have shown that some phenolic acids may reduce cataract development in various animal models. However, there is no data on the effect of phenolic acids on oxidative stress markers in the lenses of estrogen-deficient rats. The study aimed to investigate whether administration of rosmarinic acid and sinapic acid affects the antioxidative abilities and oxidative damage parameters in the lenses of estrogen-deficient rats. The study was conducted on three-month-old female Wistar rats. The ovariectomized rats were orally treated with rosmarinic acid at doses of 10 and 50 mg/kg or sinapic acid at doses of 5 and 25 mg/kg, for 4 weeks. The content of reduced glutathione (GSH), oxidized glutathione and amyloid β1-42, as well as products of protein and lipid oxidation, were assessed. Moreover, the activities of superoxide dismutase, catalase, and some glutathione-related enzymes in the lenses were determined. Rosmarinic and sinapic acids in both doses resulted in an increase in the GSH content and glutathione reductase activity. They also improved parameters connected with protein oxidation. Since GSH plays an important role in maintaining the lens transparency, the increase in GSH content in lenses after the use of rosmarinic and sinapic acids seems to be beneficial. Therefore, both the investigated dietary compounds may be helpful in preventing cataract.

One of the most malignant skin cancers is melanoma-it has a high metastatic potential as well as a high resistance to treatment, which results in a high mortality rate. The basic method for treating early-stage melanomas is surgery alone. If surgery is not possible or as an adjuvant therapy, radiotherapy is used; chemotherapy is rarely used because of its low response rate (Perera et al., 2014). One promising therapeutic strategy is targeted therapy that involves blocking the BRAF kinase (about 50% of patients have a BRAF mutation), which results in a disruption of the MAPK signaling pathway and slows down the proliferation of cancer cells (Zaman et al., 2019). In addition, research is being conducted into the use of antimelanoma vaccines (Vasquez et al., 2017). Nonetheless, the low level of the effectiveness of these treatments, especially in the 3rd and 4th stages of its clinical advancement, has led to a search for new

Algal strains belonging to the Chlorococcales (Chlorophyceae) show significant differences in the extent of staining with the commonly used dye, crystalline violet. This seems to depend on the cell wall composition and on the occurrence of the acetolysis-resistant biopolymer algaenan in the algal cells.Eighteen algal strains were investigated using 24 h staining with 0.2% crystalline violet and it was confirmed that algal strains which did not contain algaenan and had a trilaminar structure in the cell wall showed strong staining ability, while non-algaenan strains were stained very weakly, if at all. The simple method presented here may be helpful to distinguish both kinds of algal strains.

Diabetes is a metabolic disease affecting many tissues and organs. The main etiological factor for diabetic complications is hyperglycemia and subsequent pathologies, such as oxidative stress. One of the organs susceptible to the development of diabetic complications is the eye with all of its elements, including the lens. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of silymarin, an extract obtained from milk thistle fruit husks, on the oxidative stress markers in the lenses of type 1 diabetic rats. The study was performed on male rats in which type 1 diabetes was induced with 60 mg/kg streptozotocin injection. Diabetic animals were treated via an intragastric tube with silymarin at 50 and 100 mg/kg doses for four weeks. Multiple oxidative stress and polyol pathway-related parameters were measured in the lenses, and auxiliary biochemical tests in the serum were conducted. Diabetes induced severe pathological changes both in the lenses and the serum, and silymarin counteracted several of them. Nevertheless, the qualitative analyses encompassing all tested parameters indicate that silymarin slightly improved the overall state of diabetic animals. Upon the obtained results, it can be concluded that silymarin reveals a faint positive effect on the lenses in type 1 diabetic rats.

The spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi s.l. can enter into different eukaryotic cells. Intracellular localization of bacteria may cause many changes in different cell pathways like apoptosis-mediated caspase cascade. The present studies focused on gene expression associated with caspase cascade after normal human dermal fibroblasts (NHDF) infection with Borrelia garinii, Borrelia afzelii, and B. burgdorferi s.s. The use of oligonucleotide microarray technique enabled an expression level comparison of genes associated with caspase cascade in NHDF infected with spirochetes. The increased expression of genes associated with caspase cascade was observed in case of CASP5, CASP2, CARD10, CASP10, MALT1, and NLRP1. The decreased expression was observed in case of CASP4, CASP6, and CASP1. The mRNA expression for CASP3 was inhibited in cells infected with three genospecies of Borrelia. However, the intensity of fluorescence was not statistically significant. In addition, cell cultures were fixed and procedure of caspase-3 detection and the TUNEL assay were performed. The in situ caspase-3 detection procedure confirmed the results obtained from microarray analyses. Only several fluorescent signals were observed. Many apoptotic cells were detected in NHDF-infected cultures with all spirochete genospecies found using the TUNEL reaction.