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Gastric cancer is the second most common cancer worldwide. The involvement of ROS (reactive oxygen species) in the pathogenesis of gastric malignancies was well know. Many human tumors have shown significant changes in the activity and expression of SOD that might be correlated with survival and clinical-pathological parameters for the prognosis of human carcinoma. Aim of this study is the detection of the MnSOD and CuZnSOD activity and expression in adenocarcinoma, Helicobacter Pilory (HP), autoimmune-atrophic-gastrite (GTA) and healthy tissues. A total of 21 gastric specimens (5 adenocarcinoma, 9 healthy, 5 HP and 2 GTA) collected during endoscopy or resected during surgery were extracted in phosphate buffer and used to determine the SOD activity and expression by spectrophotometric and western blotting assay. As regards to the carcinoma tissues, the trend of the activity of MnSOD is over 9-fold higher and 2.5-fold higher which respect to CuZnSOD in tumors and HP, respectively. On the contrary in healthy tissues and GTA the CuZnSOD shows a similar or major activity than MnSOD and each isoforms represent nearly the 50% of total SOD activity. After immunoblotting detection of SOD isoforms, MnSOD seem lightly more expressed in adenocarcinoma and HP cases respect to healthy tissues and GTA. SOD activity assay can provide a specific and sensible method of analysis that allows to differentiate healthy tissue from tumour, GTA and HP. The ratio of MnSOD and CuZnSOD activities obtained from this preliminary study, seems to be more explicative in the identification of a pathological from a healthy tissue. SOD in GTA samples present a trend similar to healthy tissues, although in HP seems to be nearly to adenocarcinoma. Further researches will be necessary to define the role of SODs in cancer and the use of the activity as a prognostic marker.

A kinetic and mechanistic study on the ligand substitution reactions of RuCl3NOL2 (L = AsPh3 or SbPh3) complexes is reported. These reactions proceed via a dissociative step. The competition of different ligands for the intermediate RuCl3NOL has been investigated; steric effects seem to influence the ability of the ligands to attack this pentacoordinated intermediate.

The marine mollusc Venus gallina was exposed to 32 days sublethal concentrations of Cadmium (0.1 microliter/ml). The activity of alkaline phosphatase was assayed every four days. In the controls the activity was also tested in different tissues and in the soft tissue for the pH dependence. Moreover the influence of direct addition of 10(-4) M Cd on enzyme preparation in vitro was assayed. From the results there are no consistent relationships between the direct in vitro effects of the metal on the enzyme, that is inhibitory, and the effect of exposing the whole animal to the same metal, in this case no inhibition was observed.

pp'DDT was converted to DDD 1-1 dichloro-2,2 bis (p-chlorophenyl) ethane, by treated 12 000 x g supernatant preparations from grey mullet livers. The anaerobic reductive dechlorination occurs whether or not exogenous NADPH and riboflavin is added after a heat pretreatment, otherwise the dechlorination is lowered when the cofactors are not added.

The accumulation of Cadmium in Mytilus galloprovincialis during a 18 days exposure period was studied. Cadmium content of the mantle, viscera, gills increased throughout the time. The study of the distribution of Cd in homogenates of mussels chronically intoxicated has shown that the metal is principally bound to low mol. wt. proteins similar to metallothioneins. Mytilus galloprovincialis metallothioneins are also comparable to the vertebrate proteins, suggesting a biological function ubiquitous in the living world.