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Sporothrix schenckii is known to produce DHN melanin on both conidial and yeast cells, however little information is available regarding the factors inducing fungal melanization. We evaluated whether culture conditions influenced melanization of 25 Brazilian S. schenckii strains and one control strain (ATCC 10212). Tested conditions included different media, pH, temperature, incubation time, glucose concentrations, and presence or absence of tricyclazole or L-DOPA. Melanization was reduced on Sabouraud compared to defined chemical medium. The majority of strains produced small amounts of melanin at 37 degrees C and none melanized at basic pH. Increased glucose concentrations did not inhibit melanization, rather increasing glucose enhanced pigment production in 27% of strains. Melanin synthesis was also enhanced by the addition of L-DOPA and its addition to medium with tricyclazole, an inhibitor of melanin synthesis, resulted in fungal melanization, including hyphal melanin production. Our results suggest that different S. schenckii strains have distinct control of melanization and that this fungus can use phenolic compounds to enhance melanization in vitro.

An automatic on-line pre-concentration system is proposed for lead determination in drinking water using flame atomic absorption spectrometry (FAAS). Lead(II) ions are retained as the 1-(2-pyridylazo)-2-naphthol (PAN) complex in the walls of a knotted reactor, followed by an elution step using 0.50molL(-1) hydrochloric acid solution. Optimisation involving the sampling flow rate, pH and buffer concentration factors was performed using a Box-Behnken design. Other factors were established considering results of previous experiments. The procedure allows the determination of lead with a 0.43microgL(-1) detection limit (3sigma/S) and precisions (expressed as relative standard deviation) of 4.84% (N=7) and 2.9% (N=7) for lead concentrations of 5 and 25microgL(-1), respectively. The accuracy was confirmed by the determination of lead in the NIST SRM 1643d trace elements in natural water standard reference material. The pre-concentration factor obtained is 26.5 and the sampling frequency is 48h(-1). The recovery achieved for lead determination in the presence of several ions demonstrated that this procedure could be applied to the analysis of drinking water samples. The method was applied for lead determination in drinking water samples collected in Jequié City, Brazil. The lead concentration found in 25 samples were always lower than the permissible maximum levels stipulated by World Health Organization.

A sample of 251 Whites and 818 Non-Whites, from Curitiba (southern Brazil), was typed with a new method with the aim of estimating the frequency of the CHE1*F allele. The frequency of this allele did not differ between Whites (0.60 +/- 0.34%) and Non-Whites (0.49 +/- 0.17%), being estimated as 0.51 +/- 0.15% for the whole sample. The use of the inhibitors DL-propranolol and RO2-0683 with alpha-naphthylacetate as substrate (at 37 degrees C) was efficient for discriminating between the CHE1 U and CHE1 UF phenotypes.