The supernatant was mixed with an equal volume of 50% glycerol, 0.1 M Tris- HCl, pH 7.5 and bromophenol blue before loading on the gel with the Androgen Receptor signaling pathway Antagonists samplecontaining 10 μg of protein ( Lowry et al., 1951) per line. Four to thirty percent polyacrylamide gels, 0.75 mmwere poured in a Hoefer gel apparatus( Li et al., 2005),. Electrophoresis was run at 250 volts for 20 h at 4 °C. For the population study, fourteen samples (PP) and ten samples (RP) chosen at random in each groupwere processed as describe above. The study population

for electrophoresis analysis consisted of fourteen samples (PP) and ten samples (RP) chosen at random in each group. The method of Karnovsky(Karnovsky, 1964) adapted to polyacrylamide gels by Li et al. (Li

et al., 2005) was used. The staining solution selleck chemicals contained 180 ml of 0.2 M maleic acid adjusted to pH 6.0 just before use, 15 ml of 0.10 M sodium citrate, 30 ml of 0.030 M CuSO4, 30 ml water, 30 ml of 5 mM potassium ferricyanide, and 150 mg of ASCh iodide or 171 mg of BSCh iodide. AChE purified from electric organ tissue of Electrophorus electricuswas used as a staining technique control. Gels were incubated for 5 h, or overnight, with gentle shaking until brown-red bands of activity developed. Gels stained with ASCh revealed both AChE and BChE because both enzymes have high activity with ASCh. On the other hand,gels stained with BSCh identified BChE. In addition, comparison with human serum bands allowed the identification of BChE according to the attachment of structural subunits. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to compare differences between the inhibitor and the substrate concentrations. Protein tyrosine phosphatase The comparison between the two types of substrates at same concentration and between PR and PP samples was

made using the Students t-test.All statistical analyses were performed using R software version 2.6.0. Statistical significance was assumed as p < 0.05. The characterization of the ChEs activities included a first step to distinguish ChEs from non-specific esterases using in vitro incubations with specific inhibitors of ChEs. Figure 1A shows that ChEs activities were almost totally inhibited by eserine. Specific inhibitors were used, an important decrease of BChE and AChE enzymatic inhibition was observed, reaching a plateauat about at 3.3 × 10−6 M ( Figure 1B)and 16 × 10−6 M ( Figure 1 C), respectively. The preference of placenta homogenate samples usingASCh or BSCh as substratesis showed in Figure 2. Lower enzymatic activities were observed when using BSCh as substrate at all the evaluated concentrations (ASCh > BSCh (p < 0.05) Figure 3 shows the migration of the bands corresponding to control placenta samples, human plasma sample and commercial E. electricusAChE. Enzyme activities were revealed in the presence of the BChE-specific substrate, BSCh ( Figure 3 A) and in the presence of ASCh ( Figure 3B).