Amylase transcription in the human salivary gland results from the evolutionary juxtaposition of two inserted elements, a gamma-actin pseudogene and an endogenous retrovirus, to create an unusual salivary-specific promoter. We utilized these structures as molecular tags to characterize the amylase genes in extant primates by polymerase chain reaction amplification of promoter fragments from gen...

AIM To determine the usefulness of measuring amylase activity as an indicator of pancreatic disease in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) positive patients. METHODS A prospective study of 129 ambulant HIV positive males. Total amylase, pancreatic amylase, and lipase activities were assayed using commercial test kits on an automated analyser. Samples with raised amylase were examined for the p...

BACKGROUND & AIM Alpha-amylase in both blood and saliva has been used as a diagnostic parameter. While studies examining alpha-amylase activity in saliva have shown that it is sensitive to physiological and psychological challenge of the adrenergic system, no challenge studies have attempted to elucidate the role of the adrenergic system in alpha-amylase activity in blood. We set out to examine...

the effect of a neuropeptide, the tachykinin on α-amylase, protease and lipase activities in the midgut of american cockroach, periplaneta americana (linnaeus) is evaluated . immunohistochemical reactivities against tachykinin (tachykinin- ir) were detected in the midgut. tachykinin-ir cells in three regions (anterior, median and posterior) of the midgut were counted in normally fed, starved fo...

it is believed that the inhibition of carbohydrate hydrolyzing enzymes including α-amylase and α-glucosidase is one of the therapeutic approaches to decrease the postprandial glucose level after a meal, especially in the people with type 2 diabetes. medicinal plants and their extracts are one of the main sources to find new inhibitors to the enzymes. in our study four flavonoids, namely luteoli...

it is now believed that the inhibition of carbohydrate hydrolyzing enzymes (ches) in the digestive tract can significantly prolong the overall carbohydrate digestion time and decrease the postprandial hyperglycemia after a meal. therefore, inhibitors of ches can be useful therapeutic approaches in the management of diabetes mellitus, especially in the type 2, and complications associated with t...

Previous studies have shown that amylase levels are reduced significantly in the pancreas and parotid gland of diabetic rats and that insulin reverses this effect and increases the secretory protein levels. In the pancreas, these changes in amylase protein levels are accompanied by parallel changes in amylase mRNA levels. In the present study, the effects of diabetes and subsequent insulin trea...

Serum amylase activity was measured in 15 normal persons and in 60 liverdisease patients. Impairment of liver was assessed by serum bilirubin and thymol turbidity values. Most of the patients had serum amylase values that were well below the normal limits. Amylase activities were related to the degree of liver dysfunction, and serum amylase decreased as the bilirubin and turbidity values increa...

Amylase activity and mRNA abundance are reduced to less than 1% of normal levels in diabetic rat pancreas. Administration of vanadate in drinking water restored normal amylase activity and amylase mRNA levels. These results demonstrate an effect of vanadate on pancreatic acinar cells and suggest that vanadate can mimic the effect of insulin on transcription of the pancreatic amylase gene.