Category Archives: Toxi-city

THis is just a quick dumb cartoon set that I began for the superfund many decades ago that the higher ups didn’t really think was relevant but has always been kind of a favorite of mine. Those little bugs in that biofilm (biofilms, biomes, biospheres are everywhere) some sparkling with radioactive ideas make me laugh.

MVB/LE/PFC bodies within alveolar macrophages of liquid-breathed mice

Electron microgaphs of lung, Environment and contaminants, Golgi, vesicles and stress, Legacy Perfluorocarbons, The cell: images, Toxi-city, Ultimate order, the cell

In this case the liquid which the mouse breathed for 3 hours and allowed to recover for 17 days was E2.  Thank goodness for good record keeping otherwise I would have forgotten what E2 stood for. Here is what the notations say (from back when Leland Clark Jr. was keeping tabs on all documents and publications.  E2 (made by Du Pont) O2 solubility ml/100ml at 25oC 55.7, vapor pressure 56mmHg at 37.5oC, viscosity 0.6 at 25oC, boiling point at 104.4oC, density gm/ml 1.656 at 25oC, surface tension 12.9 dynes/cm at 25oC.E2 liquid for breathing perfluorochemical molecular
There were a bunch of MVB/LE/PFC organelles in these macrophages that I began to look more closely at the parallel leaflet patterns that were showing up at higher magnification.

Altogether there were 29 mice that breathed E2, it much have been a satisfactory fluid or there would not be a dozen or more mice that survived from 5 days to 449 days after 3 hr of breathing E2.

The electron micrograph below was one such body, I don’t think it could clearly be labeled a multivesicular body or a late endosome, but there are E2 droplets involved in its organization.  I don’t believe there is any outer nuclear membrane association, but there are membranes with different distances apart which are clearly organized (actually a parallel disorganization – if such a thing can (and it does visually here) exist).  So I sensed that the distance between the leaflets of these membranes was different within the MVB/LE/PFC thingie and in the membranes arranged just outside the MVB/LE/PFC structure and they were different. The latter look to be about separated at 22nm n=28, x=0.053+0.0014  (mm, on the micrograph translated to close to 22nm in actuality) , and I also measured couple of dozen distances between parallel pairs within the MVB/LE/PFC structure itself and it was closer to 28nm (n=31). When the long string of measurements were subjected to a t-test (remember this is an N of ONE macrophage (there will be others) so it is not really saying much) there was an highly significant (p=0.0001) difference between the mean and SEM of the two (color coded) groups. Pictures below show how the lines and data shaped up. White dotted line outlines the two areas sampled for leaflet separation.

Figure below that shows actual sites of measurement and place of measurement for each group.

liquid breathing electron microscopy mouse lung E2

liquid breathing electron microscopy mouse lung E2In another macrophage –another micrograph — another block same E2 treatment and duration, a similar type of inclusion is seen, but this one did not display the linear qualities of the MVB/LE/PFC as above.  There are two droplets of presumptive E2 in this image, they are middle right and upper left.  Whether the lucent area in this inclusion is E2 is anybody’s guess.

Bisphenol A: straining of gnats swallowing camels?

Environment and contaminants, Toxi-city

toxi-city_4I appreciate this site (linked below) and its comments on BPA, as it sort of sums up what I have read about bisphenol A over the last 6 years.  When we find something so entrenched in daily life as plastic might not be “good for us” it takes a huge amount of effort to effect small changes to eliminate it. This means change on the consumer side (comfort and convenience) which is hard to deny, and voluntary change on the side of the producers (profit and greed) which is very unlikely to happen.chemical_engineering_news

http://cen.acs.org/articles/89/i23/Exposure-Routes-Confound-BPA-Debate.html

Some specific articles are here:

1) Bisphenol A  2) Debating BPA’s toxicity 3) BPA is indespensible for making plastic 4) Exposure Routes Confound BPA Debate

I debate daily in my own mind as to what is the greater risk to my health, the negative effects of the “stress” worrying about exposure to PBA. or the biological effect of the “toxin” and whether the effort exerted for “avoidance” is appropriate to the relative daily “dose” I receive, especially when taken into consideration with all other xenoestrogens to which I am exposed.

BPA manufacturers suggest that, given the level of exposure to phytoestrogens in the daily diet (aside here—-we all know that the vegetables which have phytoestrogens are NOT a part of most individuals daily diet (LOL)), the amounts of BPA that leach from polycarbonate plastics and ­epoxy resins may not really matter and in addition BPA is not the only chemical we encounter daily with estrogenic effects, nor does BPA have the highest estrogenic effect of these other chemicals, but one thing it is, is plentiful. It makes sense, because of the ease of contact, the abundance of the compound, the continuousness of our contact and the millions of pounds of BPA produced each year, that we give some small consideration to “limiting” our BPA exposure.

At some point (as happened for smokes, alcohol and drugs, lack of exercise, poor diet, etc etc) more will be known and more prudent measures applied.