Alcohol abuse is a major cause of pancreatitis. However alcohol toxicity has not been fully elucidated in the pancreas and little is known about the effect of alcohol on pancreatic ducts. We report the molecular mechanisms of ethanol-induced damage of pancreatic duct epithelial cells (PDEC). Ethanol treatment for 1, 4, and 24 h resulted in cell death in a dose-dependent manner. The ethanol-indu...

The alcohol dehydrogenases (ADH) crystallized from yeast (1, 2) and from horse liver (3) differ in many of their properties. The mammalian enzyme forms a complex with reduced diphosphopyridine nucleotide in which the absorption band of the coenzyme at 340 rnp is shifted to 325 rnh (4). This permitted the direct study by Theorell and Chance (5) of the stoichiometry and dissociation constant of t...

Bifunctional alcohol/aldehyde dehydrogenase (ADHE) enzymes are found within many fermentative microorganisms. They catalyse the conversion of an acyl-coenzyme A to an alcohol via an aldehyde intermediate; this is coupled to the oxidation of two NADH molecules to maintain the NAD(+) pool during fermentative metabolism. The structure of the alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) domain of an ADHE protein fr...