TheKhants inhabit the area of the western Siberia in the basin of the river Ob and its tributaries, administratively belonging to the Tlumen region. In the two autonomous districts, Khanty-Mansi and Yamal-Nenets, lives the absolute majority of the Khants. The 1979 census estimated their number to 21 000. The Soviet literatuře divides the Khants to three groups; one of them being the Northern Khants - mostly reindeer herders. The oldest account of the Ob-Ugrians - the Khants and the Mansi ~ we find in the Nestor Chronicle. In the western Siberia there existed two types of transport- the dog teams were ušed by the Khants, the reindeer teams by the Samoyedic groups (for example the Nenets). The question of the time when the Northern Khants started the reindeer herding has not been resolvedyet. During the field research realized in theyears 1996, 1997 and 1999 during my stay with the Maksar family I háve studied the problems concerning the reindeers and the contemporary life in the Khanty community after the disintegration of the USSR. The everyday activity in the camp is centered around the reindeer. The camp moves periodically, depending upon the quantity of the pasture for the reindeer. The Khants can be described as „ seasonal pastoralists “ that every year leave from their point of departure, the community of Pitljar, to places chosen in advance, located in a precisely demarcated area, in summer in tundra, in winter in taiga. In summer the moving of the camp takés plače more often, approximately every fourteen days, in winter the Khants move three or four times altogether at the most. For the moving of the camp they use reindeer team and two types of sled, riding and cargo sled.
Orlíček (Aquilegia) z čel. pryskyřníkovitých (Ranunculaceae) je cirkumboreální rod čítající na 70 druhů a mnoho desítek či set zahradních kultivarů. Druhy se mezi sebou snadno kříží a křížence lze často nalézt i na lokalitách v přírodě. V aridních oblastech mají orlíčky tendenci vytvářet malé populace, často vzájemně kompletně izolované. To vede k lokální fixaci genů a tudíž i k zvýšení variability druhů. Severoamerická flóra čítá 21 druhů. and Columbine (Aquilegia) from the family Ranunculaceae is a circumboreal genus comprising about 70 species and several dozen or even hundreds of garden cultivars. Different species cross with each other very easily and hybrids can frequently be found even in natural localities. In arid areas aquilegias usually form small populations, often spatially isolated. This leads to local gene fixation and therefore to higher species variability. Twenty-one species are represented in the flora of North America.
Extracellular DNA (ecDNA) activates immune cells and is involved in the pathogenesis of diseases associated with inflammation such as sepsis, rheumatoid arthritis or metabolic syndrome. DNA can be cleaved by deoxyribonucleases (DNases), some of which are secreted out of cells. The aim of this experiment was to describe plasma DNase activity in relation to extracellular DNA in adult rats, to analyse potential sex differences and to prove whether they are related to endogenous testosterone. Adult Lewis rats (n=28) of both sexes were included in the experiment. Male rats were gonadectomized or sham-operated and compared to intact female rats. Plasma ecDNA and DNase activity were measured using fluorometry and single radial enzyme diffusion assay, respectively. Concentrations of nuclear ecDNA and mitochondrial ecDNA were determined using real-time PCR. Females had 60% higher plasma DNase activity than males (p=0.03). Gonadectomy did not affect plasma DNase aktivity in males. Neither the concentration of total ecDNA, nor nuclear or mitochondrial DNA in plasma differed between the groups. No significant correlations between DNase aktivity and ecDNA were found. From previous studies on mice, it was expected, that male rats will have higher DNase activity. In contrast, our study in rats showed the opposite sex difference. This sex difference seems not to be caused by endogenous testosterone. Interestingly, no sex differences were observed in plasma ecDNA suggesting a complex or missing association between plasma ecDNA and DNase. The observed sex difference in plasma DNase aktivity should be taken into account in animal models of ecDNAassociated diseases.
Cardiac gap junctions have been implicated in maintaining intercellular electrical and metabolic couplings. The abnormalities in connexin-43 (Cx43) lead to conduction defects and contractile dysfunction. We have evaluated the expression and phoshorylation status of Cx43 in the left ventricular myocardium of male and female 16-month-old rats submitted to 14-week L-thyroxine (T4) treatment. Western blot analysis revealed the presence of fully or intermediately phosphorylated and unphosphorylated forms of Cx43. We have found no significant differences in Cx43 expression and phosphorylation between T4-treated and control untreated animals. However, expression of Cx43 was significantly higher in female compared to male rats. We conclude that T4 administration has no effect on Cx43 expression, but there are sex-dependent differences in Cx43 expression in the left ventricles between aging male and female rats.
The Morris water maze (MWM) is one of the most common tasks used to assess spatial learning and memory ability in rodents. Genetic strain and gender are two prominent variants that influence spatial performance. Although it was reported that ICR (Institute of Cancer Research) mice exhibited an unchanged baseline performance in the training phase of the MWM task, this outbred strain has been widely used in learning and memory studies, and little is known regarding the effects of sex on behavioral performance. In this study, we demonstrated that both male and female ICR mice could complete the MWM task. Furthermore, a significant sex difference was observed, with females having shorter escape latencies and longer durations in the target quadrant in both the acquisition and test phases. Our findings emphasize the necessity of careful examination of not only the strain effect on behavioral performance but also the sex effect., J.-F. Ge, ... [et al.]., and Obsahuje seznam literatury
To determine whether a short-term change in dietary habits affects postprandial lipemia in men and women in the same way, postprandial triglyceridemia was measured in age- and BMI-matched young healthy men and women after two weeks on the self-selected low-fat low-cholesterol (LF) diet and after another two weeks on the self-selected high-fat high-cholesterol (HF) diet. After a standardized challenge meal (1.4 g fat/kg of body weight), men had higher postprandial triglyceridemia than women on the HF diet but no such difference was observed on the LF diet. The results of this preliminary study suggest that there may be important sex differences in the mechanisms regulating the postprandial lipemia response to different diets, women being able to adapt better to the HF diet with respect to postprandial lipemia., J. Kovář, R. Poledne., and Obsahuje bibliografii
The sex ratio of loach fishes from the warm thermal spring Baile Episcopesti in western Romania was investigated. In Cobitis elongatoides, the sex ratio was balanced, while in Sabanejewia balcanica, males made up 77% of the adult fish. In both species, body size at onset of maturation and maximum length were remarkably smaller than in other populations. Mature males of C. elongatoides measured 35 to 51 mm in total length while the largest female reached 69 mm. Males of S. balcanica measured 40 to 53 mm and the largest female had a total length of 54 mm. We consider both the dwarfism of the fish as well as the male-biased sex ratio in S. balcanica to be caused by the thermal regime in the spring.