BACKGROUND About half of the world's population is exposed to smoke from burning biomass fuels at home. The high airborne particulate levels in these homes and the health burden of exposure to this smoke are well described. Burning unprocessed biological material such as wood and dried animal dung may also produce high indoor endotoxin concentrations. OBJECTIVE In this study we measured airbo...

Endotoxin is physiologically present in portal venous blood at concentrations of 100 pg/ml to 1 ng/ml. Clearance of endotoxin from portal blood occurs through sinusoidal lining cells, i.e., Kupffer cells, and liver sinusoidal endothelial cells (LSEC). We have recently shown that LSEC are fully efficient APCs. Here, we studied the influence of endotoxin on the accessory function of LSEC. Incubat...

PURPOSE Bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS, endotoxin) is a potent stimulator of inflammatory responses and is likely to contribute to microbial keratitis and to the pathogenesis of sterile corneal ulcers. The purpose of the present study was to identify specific mediators of endotoxin-induced keratitis. METHODS The corneal epithelium of BALB/c, C3H/HeJ, and C3H/HeN mice was abraded, and Pseud...

The Limulus lysate assay was used to measure the endotoxin content in stream water and was found to reflect the degree of bacterial contamination as measured by coliform, enteric, gram-negative, and heterotrophic bacteria. The firm-clot method was found to be a less sensitive and reproducible technique for the detection of endotoxin than was the spectrophotometric modification of the Limulus ly...

BACKGROUND Elevated blood endotoxin levels are frequently reported in the dialysis population and are strongly linked with inflammation, a major predictor of mortality. Virtually all studies have employed the Limulus Amoebocyte Lysate (LAL) assay to detect endotoxin. However this assay is not endotoxin-specific and can be activated by (1→3)-β-glucan (BG), a component of fungal cell walls leadin...

The endotoxin-altering activity of fractions isolated from normal horse serum was examined by incubation of Salmonella typhosa strain 0-901 endotoxin (Boivin) in a solution of the fraction, and subsequent quantitation of any diminution in the capacity of endotoxin to be precipitated by specific anti-endotoxin antiserum. The horse serum fraction isolated by precipitation with ammonium sulfate at...

It has been suggested that exposure to elevated levels of endotoxin decreases the risk of allergic sensitization. The objective of our study was to analyze associations between house dust endotoxin levels and allergic sensitization in children. One hundred children with self-reported allergic diseases and 100 healthy children were randomly selected from a list of a previous prevalence study in ...

Norepinephrine (NE), a standard of care, AVP, an alternative candidate, and L-canavanine (LC), a selective inhibitor of inducible nitric oxide synthase, were compared for efficacy and innocuousness on global and regional hemodynamics, plasmatic and tissue lactate-to-pyruvate ratio (L/P), tissue high-energy phosphates, renal function, and tissue capillary permeability in a rat model of endotoxic...

Dr. Joseph Chen first presented Low Endotoxin Recovery (LER) in April 2013.1 A masking effect of endotoxin was observed with a matrix containing a chelating agent and a detergent, and the endotoxin potency was not successfully recovered by dilution or magnesium replacement, the usual way to overcome the inhibition caused by chelation. The LER brought us some concerns relating to the suitability...

The evidence as to whether exposure to environmental airborne endotoxin plays a protective or an inducing role in the development of asthma is reviewed. Studies of endotoxin and atopy, endotoxin and asthma, and farming and asthma are considered and, in each instance, a distinction is made between evidence of primary causation and evidence of secondary causation. It is concluded that, although i...