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  Background and Objectives: A great amount of evidence shows that Oxidative stress is high among hemodialysis patients. The purpose of present investigation is examination of the effect of zinc supplementation on improvement of oxidative stress in chronic hemodialysis patients.

  Methods: In this double blind clinical trial 65 chronic hemodialysis patients were studied in two groups Group one (35 patients) received placebo and group two (30 patients) received 100 mg elemental zinc (as zinc sulfate) daily for 2 months. The placebo and supplement discontinued in next 2 months. Then, the study continued for two other months in the cross-over from. The levels of serum zinc, total glutathione, malondialdehyde (MDA), total serum antioxidant capacity and the activity of whole blood superoxide dismutase (SOD) were determined on 0^th, 60^th,120^th,180^th days, in fasting, predialysis samples. Food record was recorded for one day prior to dialysis in above-mentioned days and their dietary zinc was assessed.

  Results: Basal serum zinc levels in both groups were below 80 μ g/dl. The zinc upplementation led to significant increase in the levels of serum zinc in both groups .The levels of serum total antioxidant capacity, total glutathione and activity of whole blood SOD increased significantly during zinc supplementation period. The concentrations of serum MDA decreased significantly in zinc supplementation period in both groups. During the placebo period the levels of MDA in first group increased significantly, whereas the concentration of glutathione in second group decreased significantly. The body mass index (BMI) values did not change significantly during the study.

  Conclusion: It can be concluded that in patients undergoing hemodialysis the oxidative stress enhanced during nonsupplementation period (zinc sulfate). Low serum zinc levels are improved by zinc administration and zinc supplementation improves oxidative stress.

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Background & objectives: the interaction of albumin- the most important plasma protein- with various drugs leads to variations in the pharmacokinetics of drugs. Since interaction of different pharmaceuticals with albumin is determinant in the estimation of dose and prediction of drug-drug and drug-food interferences, studying the binding ability of different drugs with albumin is an active area of research.
Methods: Docking studies were performed by Lamarckian Genetic Algorithm of AutoDock 4.2 program. The three-dimensional structures of albumin were obtained from Brookhaven protein data bank (2BXD & 2BXF; www.rcsb.org). Pre-processing of molecules was done using AM1 method and AutoDock Tools 1.5.4 software. AM1 optimization method was performed using Polak-Ribiere (conjugate gradient) algorithm with termination condition as RMS gradient of 0.1 Kcal/Å mol. Schematic representation of drug-albumin complexes were obtained by Ligplot.
Results: Oxiconazole and fenticonazole were top-ranked drugs in binding to site 1 (subdomain IIA) and 2 (subdomain IIIA) of albumin, respectively (∆G_b -9.01 and -9.89 kcal.mol^-1). Leu238 and Ala291 were the key residues of site 1 due to hydrophobic contacts with all of the antifungals, while Ile388, Asn391 and Leu430 were the key residues of site 2. A few structure binding relationship rules could be extracted from the binding pattern of antifungal drugs.
Conclusion: It was found that antifungal agents might have higher affinity toward site 2 of albumin rather than site 1. Estimated high albumin affinities of antifungals provided the possibility of drug-drug or drug-food interactions. It seemed that hydrophobic contacts were more significant in binding antifungals to albumin.