The polyol pathway is a two-step metabolic pathway in which glucose is reduced to sorbitol, which is then converted to fructose. It is one of the most attractive candidate mechanisms to explain, at least in part, the cellular toxicity of diabetic hyperglycemia because (i) it becomes active when intracellular glucose concentrations are elevated, (ii) the two enzymes are present in human tissues ...

PURPOSE Cultured bovine lens epithelial cells (BLECs) exposed to sodium hypertonicity respond with an accumulation of intracellular myo-inositol. Using BLECs initially maintained at hypertonicity and reacting to a decrease in medium osmolality, a mechanism for the tonicity-activated release of myo-inositol was recognized. Alternatively, BLECs acclimated to sodium hypertonicity and subsequently ...

The relationship between the effect of aldose reductase inhibitors (ARIs) on the activation of the polyol pathway and on diabetic neuropathy has not been fully established. To address this issue, we investigated the effect of epalrestat (150 mg/day), an ARI, on erythrocyte sorbitol levels as an index of polyol activation and on nerve function test results in 43 patients with diabetic peripheral...

Hyperglycemia is an indication of poor outcome for heart attack patients, even for nondiabetic patients with stress-induced hyperglycemia. Previous studies showed that inhibition of aldose reductase, the first and rate-limiting enzyme of the polyol pathway, attenuated contractile dysfunction in diabetic animals, but the mechanism is unclear. We therefore wanted to find out whether the polyol pa...

Active eukaryotic RNA polymerase II (RNAP II) was purified by immunoaffinity chromatography, using a monoclonal antibody (mAb) that reacts with the highly conserved heptapeptide repeat of the largest subunit. This mAb (designated 8WG16) was conjugated to CNBr-activated Sepharose and used to purify RNAP II from wheat germ and calf thymus. The subunit composition of the immunoaffinity-purified en...

The accumulation of polyols has been previously found in renal glomeruli isolated from streptozocin-induced diabetic (STZ-D) rats, although the intraglomerular polyol pathway has not been exactly localized. Because we have previously observed mesangial cell dysfunction in STZ-D rats, we examined whether the polyol pathway exists in mesangial cells as a possible candidate of the cause of cellula...

The polyol pathway is one of the possible biochemical mechanisms by which hyperglycemia could impair the function and structure of the cells affected by diabetic complications. As possible hypothesis for the pathogenesis of diabetic complications, the polyol osmotic theory, alterations in myo-inositol and sodium metabolism, intermediary metabolites, abnormal changes of the redox state (NADH/NAD...