Fumagillin is an antibiotic derived from the fungus Aspergillus fumigatus. It has been used successfully for the treatment of intestinal microsporidiosis in HIV-positive humans, as well as in those suffering from intestinal amebiasis and microsporidial keratoconjunctivitis. In veterinary medicine it is approved for the treatment of microsporidiosis in bees and fish. In this research fumagillin was tested for the ability to provoke chromosomal aberrations in mouse bone marrow cells. BALB/c mice were administered fumagillin by gastric probe in doses of 5, 10 and 20 mg/kg b.w. Water-sugary syrup was the negative and cyclophosphamide (15 mg/kg b.w.) the positive control. Significantly increased frequencies (p<0.01 or p<0.001) of numerical chromosomal aberrations (aneuploidies and poliploidies) was observed both in the medium (10 mg/kg b.w.) and the highest (20 mg/kg b.w.) dose of fumagillin. Structural chromosomal aberrations (gaps, breaks and insertions) were noticeably more frequent in comparison to negative control only in the highest experimental dose of dycikloheksilamine. These results clearly showed that fumagillin in concetrations 10 and 20 mg/kg b.w. had a genotoxic potential in vivo.

During sintering of the 2MgO-2Al2O3-5SiO2 system, cordierite, an attractive ceramic material because of its properties, is obtained. Effects of mechanochemical activation of stoichiometric mixtures, performed to investigate possibilities of lowering cordierite formation temperature during sintering, were monitored by thermogravimetric and differential thermal analyses. Specific surface areas of the mechanically activated powder mixtures were determined by the BET method. Kinetics of the specific surface area increase was analyzed using the Boltzmann model. It was confirmed that with activation time increase, temperatures of phase transformations were shifted to lower values and, according to FTIR analysis no significant changes occurred during material aging. According to the obtained results, it may be concluded that since mechanochemical activation has an influence on the treated powder mixture, lowering of the cordierite formation temperature during the sintering process is expected.