Objectives: To evaluate the levels of some parameters related to bone metabolism during pregnancy i.e. total calcium (CA), 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (Vit.D), parathormone hormone (PTH), phosphorous, osteocalcin, total acid phosphatase and its tartrate resistant isoform (TrACP), total alkaline phosphatase (TALP) and its isoenzmes activities, total protein, albumin, globulin in sera and haemoglobin in blood in a group of egyptian pregnant women who are living in cairo and under reasonable medical care.
Cases: The study was conducted on 33 healthy pregnant women (age range from 20 to 38 years) and 16 healthy non-pregnant women within the same age range to serve as controls. Twenty blood samples were collected from the pregnant women at the end of first trimester of pregnancy (Week-11), twenty four were collected at the end of third trimester (Week-38).
Results: Regarding the osteoblastic activity, the T.ALP was significantly increased due to placental T.ALP and to a lesser degree to bone ALP, while osteocalcin levels. Showed a non significant increment in the 1st and 2nd trimesters of pregnancy with significant increase in the 3rd trimester of pregnancy .concerning the osteoclastic activity, The TrACP isoform decreased significantly in the 2nd trimester of pregnancy, Then returned to the normal values of non-pregnant control levels. Women in the last trimester of pregnancy have higher estrogen level than any other time of life. Although, estrogens at physiologic concentration inhibit osteoclastic activity, hight estrogen concentration increases osteoclastic activity.
As regards the factors that responsible for calcium homeostasis, significant decrease in serum intact PTH was concurrent with significant increase in Vit.D. The total serum calcium level was significantly decreased through the pregnancy, while the ionized calcium did not change, and the serum phosphorus was highly significantly increased.
Conclusion: From these results it has been concluded that, the pregnancy imposes major changes in the mother's nutritional requirement and causes physiological alternation in maternal bone metabolism. Minimal changes affecting the bone turnover were demonstrated among egyptian women throughout pregnancy due to the nutritional statue of the women and thier supplementation with Ca and/or Vit.D. Also,the changes in the haemodynamic parameters of the mother may be due to heamodilution that occur during pregnancy. The obtained patterns showed that the egyptian women who are living in urban areas (e.g. cairo), and under reasonable medical care are in good health compared to other communities in which the nutritional status and the poor medical care are the main reasons for the dramatic changes in the bone metabolism.

The effects of the non-selective beta-blocker propranolol (CAS 525-66-6) and the cardioselective drug atenolol (CAS 29122-68-7) on serum glucose, insulin levels and some serum lipid components, were compared in normal and diabetic rats receiving glibenclamide. The two beta-blockers, when administered concurrently with glibenclamide in normal rats, exerted a significant hypoglycemic effect (p < 0.01), while in diabetic rats the two drugs caused a more significant decrease (p < 0.001 and p < 0.01, resp.). Serum insulin levels were mainly unaffected by the two beta-blockers. Propranolol was found to exhibit a hypolipidemic effect in diabetic rats when administered alone or in combination with glibenclamide. In comparison atenolol, when used alone, exerted a significant increase in triglycerides and total lipid levels (p < 0.05) in normal rats. This effect was masked when atenolol was administered concurrently with glibenclamide, but a hypercholesterolemic effect (p < 0.01) was noticed. Paradoxically in diabetic rats, atenolol caused a significant decrease (p < 0.05) in triglycerides level, while its combined use with glibenclamide showed no effect.

Although animal research ethics committees (AREC) are
well established in Western
countries this field is
weakly developed and its concept is poorly understood
in the Middle East and North Africa region. Our
main objective was to establish the first animal ethics committee to introduce the concept and
requirements of ethical approaches in dealing with experimental animal models in Egypt.
To achieve this we established our standard oper
ating producers (SOP) according to international
guidelines. Our SOP constituted the AREC responsi
bilities, committee member
s selection, evaluation
procedures emphasizing the regional cultures, etc. T
he challenges encountered by the committee were
diverse such as the absence of laws that control the
use of animal models in scientific research, lack of
guidelines (protocols for animal subjects in research) and mandatory ethical approval for any
experimental animal research. To ov
ercome the challenges, high univer
sity authorities were approached
to approve the establishment of an AREC committee.
Moreover, workshops were instigated in different
universities to: 1) emphasize the legal requirement
of animal research ethics approval; 2) describe the
guidelines how ethical evaluation of scie
ntific proposal will be carried out; 3)
facilitate interaction with best
practices and research experts and 4) teach young rese
arches how to write protocol involving the use of
animal subjects in research. In three months, we were able to conduct three workshops after each
workshop questionnaire and evaluation was obtained to overcome weak points.

The effect of methanol on some of the lipid components in serum was studied in rats. Methanol was administered by stomach tube in doses of 2 and 6 ml/kg b.wt daily for 21 and 6 days, respectively. Methanol was found to accumulate lipids; thus, cholesterol, phospholipids and triglycerides increased significantly. Concurrently, modification of the lipoid content of organs has been considered. It was concluded that methanol and not only formate, is toxic to rats, inspite of the alleged difference in routes of its metabolism in primates and rodents.

Background: Whartons jelly-derived mesenchymal stem cells are a valuable alternative source that possess multipotent properties, easy to obtain and available in large scale compared to BMMSCs. We investigated the possibility of cardiac function improvement post isoproterenol induced cardiac injury in a rat model following human WJMSCs transplantation.

Materials and Methods: MSCs were extracted and cultured from cord WJ, characterized by morphology, Immunophenotyping and differentiation to osteoblast and adipocytes. WJMSCs were labeled with PKH2 linker dye. Wistar rats were divided into control group, ISO group (injected with 2 doses of isoproterenol) to induce myocardial injury and ISO group transplanted with labelled WJMSCs. ECG, electrocardiographic patterns, cardiac marker enzymes, tracing of labeled MSCs and immunohistochemical analysis of myocardial cryosections were studied.

Results and Conclusions: WJ derived MSCs were expanded for more than 14 passages while maintaining their undifferentiated state, were positive for MSC markers and were able to differentiate into adipocyte and osteoblast. We demonstrated that intravenously administered WJMSCs were capable of homing predominently in the ischemic myocardium. Cardiac markers were positively altered in stem cell treated group compared to ISO group. ECG and ECHO changes were improved with higher survival rate. WJMSCs could differentiate into cardiac-like cells (positive for cardiac specific proteins) in vivo. WJMSCs infusion promoted cardiac protection and reduced mortality, emphasizing a promising therapeutic role for myocardial insufficiency.

The effect of acute methyl alcohol poisoning in male albino rats was investigated. rats injected intraperitoneally with median lethal (6 ml/kg body weight) and lethal (10 ml/kg body weight) dose of absolute methanol showed a significant decrease that high concentrations remained in the blood twenty four hours post-injection of the median lethal dose. In addition, microscopic examination of the retina showed edema and considerable damage to the photoreceptprs, nerve cells of the inner nuclear layer and ganglion cells, which may result in impairment of vision. It is suggested that rats can be used as experimental models for methanol poisoning and the resulting ocular toxicity studies.

The effect of long-term treatment of chloroquine (CAS 54-05-7) (20 mg/kg body weight) on serum lipid components and its relation to to the retinotoxic effect was studied in albino rats. Chloroquine was found to form lamellar lysosome-like structures within the photoreceptive layer, as well as the pigment epithelium and neurooretinal layers. Biochemically, hypolipidemia in the serum was observed mainly due to the decrease in phospholipid portion. It was hypothesized that due to the inhibition of the degradation process in the defective lysosomes, the retinal cells were denied the re-use of their own phospholipids, and thereby resort to their uptake from the serum.

Pichia pinus biomass obtained from growth on methanol medium was fed to rats as 10% protein of the diet. Its nutritional, Physiological and histological effects were estimated. The protein efficiency ratio (PER) and the apparent digestibility of the biomass (Dapp) were 2.74 ± 0.107 and 73.99 ± 1.21, respectively, while that of casein (control) were 2.91 ± 0.127 and 90.16 ± 0.64, respectively. the alkaline phosphatase levels mostly showed no significant difference from the control. While the GOT levels were mostly significantly lowered, and the GPT levels did not show consistency. The urea nitrogen and creatinine levels in serum were unchanged, While that of uric acid was only significantly increased after 35 feeding days. Histologically no changes were observed.