Combined effects of temperature and copper ion concentration on the superoxide dismutase activity in Crassostrea ariakensis

Superoxide dismutase（SOD） is a crucial antioxidant enzyme playing the first defense line in antioxidant pathways against reactive oxygen species in various organisms including marine invertebrates. There exist mainly two specific forms, Cu/Zn-SOD（SOD1） and Mn-SOD（SOD2）, in eukaryotes. SODs are known to be concurrently modulated by a variety of environmental stressors. By using central composite experimental design and response surface method, the joint effects of water temperature（18–34°C） and copper ion concentration（0.1–1.5 mg/L） on the total SOD activity in the digestive gland of Crassostrea ariakensis were studied. The results showed that the linear effect of temperature was highly significant（P〈0.01）, the quadratic effect of temperature was significant（P〈0.05）; the linear effect of copper ion concentration was not significant（P〉0.05）, while the quadratic effect of copper ion concentration was highly significant（P〈0.01）; the interactive effect of temperature and copper ion concentration was not significant（P〉0.05）; the effect of temperature was greater than that of copper ion concentration. The model equation of digestive gland SOD enzyme activity towards the two factors of interest was established, with R2 and predictive R2 as high as 0.961 6 and 0.820 7, respectively, suggesting that the goodness-offit to experimental data be very satisfactory, and could be applied to prediction of digestive gland SOD activity in C. ariakensis under the conditions of the experiment. Our results would be conducive to addressing the health of aquatic animals and/or to detecting environmental problems by taking SOD as a potential bioindicator.

Study of the Effects of the Chinese Herbal Prescription Combined with Copper and Ferum on the Malignancy of C

As compared with normal cells, cancer cells or malignant cells were morphologically abnor-mal : their contact inhibition and normal growth order were lost, the DNA content and ploid increased and suchkind of cells were transplantable. It the malignancy should be decreased or the malignant cells reversed, theabove abnormal changes could be reduced or disappear. BALB/c mice bearing ascites liver cancer wereused, Chinese herbal prescription combined with copper and ferrum (CHPCCF) was given by gavage for 10days, and then some cell-biological parameters were measured; further , the ascites cancer cells (controland treatment) were removed and retransptanted to another mice and observed. The results showed that inCHPCCF treatment group, DNA content of the cancer cells was decreased, and the proliferation index wasreduced (control : 83 . 4 ± 2 . 6, CHPCCF group : 78. 8 ± 1 . 5 ; or control : 67. 2 ± 1 . 3 , CHPCCF group : 64. 2 ±l . 6, P < 0. 02) , the number of the cancer cells in Gl phase increased obviously, but, those of S + G2Mphases decreased ( P < 0. 05 ￣ 0. 01 ) ; on the DNA histogram, the diploid peak became higher and bigger,but aneuploid or multiploid peaks became smaller. Furthermore, retransplanted experiments showed that in2/10 animals, the tumors did not grow, and in other 8/10 animals , the tumors grew, but the tumors' sizewere smaller than that of the control ; the growth inhibition rate was 71 . 7% ￣ 88. 3% ; and tumors ' grewslowly ; the growth curve of the tumors in CHPCCF group was considerably lower than that of the control ; thesurvival period of retransplanted animals was prolonged significantly (from 26. 1 ± 11 . 8 to 38. 1 ± 9. 6, or to39 . 6 ± 7 . 2 days, P<0 . 01 ); the increase in life span was 46% and 52% respectively. The results suggestedthat CHPCCF could reduce the malignancy of mice liver cancer cells.