The effect of x-irradiation and thermal burn on the intestinal mucosa

A 1-min thermal burn combined with 700 rads whole-body X-irradiation resulted in an increased mortality in the time period associated with death from intestinal injury. However, these conditions failed to produce a significant depression of intestinal mucosa mass or crypt cell population beyond that following X-irradiation alone. The increase in early mortality following the combined injuries must therefore be due to either a functional impairment in the regenerating tissue or in some other critical system.

Studies on the nature of the seromucoid and haptoglobin responses to experimental inflammation

The effects of the administration of actinomycin D, ethionine, and puromycin on the elevations of the total seromucoid fraction and of one of its components (haptoglobin) occurring during experimental inflammation have been studied. All three inhibitors of protein synthesis abolished the elevation of haptoglobin level. Ethionine and puromycin also completely suppressed the elevation of total seromucoid level, whereas actinomycin D only partially suppressed it. The seromucoid and haptoglobin levels in control animals injected with only the inhibitors of protein synthesis were not in general significantly different from those of the animals injected with turpentine and these agents. The results are consistent with the concept that the elevation of various plasma glycoproteins occurring during inflammation is principally due to de novo synthesis of these proteins rather than release of preformed proteins from tissue pools.

The effect of storage on the composition of plasma proteins

Rat plasma was stored at 22 °C, 4 °C, or −20 °C for periods up to 16 days. The experimental design made it possible to resolve the influence of temperature and duration of storage on the protein stability as measured by the electrophoretic mobility on starch gels, concentration, and esterase activity of the protein components. Among the various protein components, both increases and decreases in concentration were found. Evidence was presented indicating that storage time rather than temperature contributed most to the alterations in protein stability. The possibility that the instability during storage might be related to conformational changes was suggested and the physiological significance of this relationship was indicated.

Relative importance of reradiation, convection, and transpiration in heat transfer from plants

For a plant of average spectral properties and average diffusion resistance (2 sec/cm), diurnal variations in the energy dissipated by reradiation, convection, and transpiration have been explicitly calculated and plotted for certain environmental conditions as measured at St. Paul, Minnesota. These conditions represent the environments of characteristic types of days and of characteristic types of leaves. In all situations reradiation is overwhelmingly the dominant mode of heat transfer.A new method for the calculation of Bowen's ratio is also presented which gives results in very good agreement with older procedures. For certain individual leaves the energy dissipated by convection is found to be greater than that dissipated by transpiration. For a crop as a whole, however, transpiration is found to be by far the most important.