Effects of probiotics and prebiotics in ulcerative colitis.

OBJECTIVES: Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) are caused by the failure of immunoregulatory mechanisms due to external environmental factors in genetically predisposed individuals. Probiotics and prebiotics could be used in prevention and therapy of many disorders of gastrointestinal tract including ulcerative colitis. Probiotics are living microorganisms with good tolerability and minimal risk, which confer a health benefit for the host when administered in adequate amounts. Their effect is closely related to maintaining the natural function of the intestinal flora. In this respect, they are indispensable prebiotics to protect or reduce the incidence of inflammatory lesions in diseases of the digestive tract. CONCLUSION: Ingestion of probiotics and prebiotics may provide some clues in developing a new class of therapeutic agents for the treatment/ prevention of IBD and colitis-associated cancer (CAC) in the future (Tab. 2, Ref. 26).

Current knowledge about sports nutrition.

The scientific literature contains an abundance of information on the nutritional demands of athletes. However, designing the most suitable sports diet is very difficult.The principal aim of this article is to summarize knowledge about sports nutrition, especially the intake of macronutrients and dietary supplements.

GC clusters and the stability of mitochondrial genomes of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and related yeats.

The occurrence of GC clusters in Saccharomyces spp. and related yeasts was examined to clarify their association with the stability of intact mitochondrial genome. Abundance of nonspecific or specific GC clusters in these species decreases with phylogenetic distance from S. cerevisiae. Their number but not the number of replication origins correlates with the ability to form respiration-deficient mutants induced by ethidium bromide. This effect is not associated with the nuclear background since the cybrids having identical nuclei and mitochondria from different species gave similar results. In contrast to grand genomes, the presence of GC clusters in rho- mutants does not play any role in ethidium bromide induced mtDNA loss. The most plausible explanation for mitotically lost petite mtDNA seems to be dilution during the distribution.

Mitochondria--tool for taxonomic identification of yeasts from Saccharomyces sensu stricto complex.

Mitochondrial genomes of Saccharomyces and close relatives previously used for transplacement of mitochondria to S. cerevisiae were examined. The origins of replication in mitochondrial DNA, the presence of nuclear and mitochondrial polymorphic loci and the ability to produce mitochondrial respiration-deficient mutants were used to reclassify some collection yeasts and to assign others into four separate subgroups. The first included isolates identical to Saccharomyces cerevisiae (S. italicus, S. oviformis, S. chevalieri and S. capensis) which possess 5 or more replication origins. The second group consists of S paradoxus (var douglasii) mitochondrial genome with the equal number of ori sequences but incompatible mitochondria. The third group represents Saccharomyces sensu stricto petite-positive species (S. carlsbergensis, S. heterogenicus, S. uvarum, S. willianus) with 1-2 origins of replication significantly different from S. cerevisiae. In addition, the locus between tRNA(fMet) and tRNA(Pro) is about one-half of the 1400 bp members of S. cerevisiae complex. The last group includes isolates that do not belong to Saccharomyces sensu stricto group as they are petite-negative and devoid of any S. cerevisiae-like replication origins.