Bovine serum albumin (BSA) is an important transport protein of the blood and its aggregation/fibrillation would adversely affect its transport ability leading to metabolic disorder. Therefore, understanding the mechanism of fibrillation/aggregation of BSA and design of suitable inhibitor molecules for stabilizing its native conformation, are of utmost importance. The qualitative and quantitati...

Clostridium litorale is a Gram-positive, rod-shaped, and spore-forming bacterium, which is able to use amino acids such as glycine, sarcosine, proline, and betaine as single carbon and energy sources via Stickland reactions. The genome consists of a circular chromosome (3.41 Mb) and a circular plasmid (27 kb).

Hydrogen peroxide was generated from creatinine by the sequential enzyme reactions of creatinine amidohydrolase, creatine amidinohydrolase and sarcosine oxidase. Hydrogen peroxide was, in turn, used stoichiometrically for the condensation of 4-aminoantipyrine and N-ethyl-N-(2-hydroxy-3-sulfopropyl)-m-toluidine catalyzed by horse-radish peroxidase, resulting in the formation of quinone dye with ...

Glycine is an inhibitory neurotransmitter and is critical for NMDA receptor activation. These roles are dependent on extracellular glycine levels, which are regulated by Na(+)/Cl(-)-dependent glycine transporters (GlyTs) in neurones and glia. The glial GlyT subtype GlyT1 is well located to activate NMDA receptors. However, glial GlyTs have not been studied in an intact system thus far. Whole-ce...

Ethionine (S-ethylhomocysteine) has been shown to inhibit the growth of rats and of various microorganisms (2-7). In rats, this growth inhibition can be overcome by simultaneous administration of either methionine or choline, indicating that ethionine interferes in some manner with the metabolism of these compounds. Various hypotheses have been formulated in an effort to define more precisely t...

Experimental evidence linking the vitamins, folic acid and B12, to methyl group metabolism has been <obtained in bacterial, mammalian, and avian species (1, 2). The role of the folic acid group of vitamins in the metabolism of l-carbon intermediates has been placed on a definitive basis through isotopic studies involving formate transfer (3-6), whereas the participation of vitamin B,z in the sa...

The Flynn effect refers to the rise in IQ throughout the 20th century. This study examined whether the Flynn effect has also elevated performance on neuropsychological tests. A search of published norms revealed five tests with appropriate normative data available for comparison. These tests were the Trail-Making Test (TMT), Symbol Digit Modalities Test (SDMT), Boston Naming Test, Finger Tappin...

Several years ago we reported that formaldehyde could be isolated when dimethylaminoethanol, dimethylglycine, sarcosine, or methanol was incubated with a whole liver homogenate (1). Dimethylaminoethanol differed from the other substrates in that it required both the supernatant and sediment fractions of the homogenate to effect this biochemical oxidation. We have now prepared methyl-labeled dim...

The one-pot synthesis of three dragmacidin derivatives is reported. Sarcosine anhydride (4) is brominated and immediately reacted with the corresponding indole to produce the products, namely 3,6-bis(5'-methoxy-3'-indolyl)-1,4-dimethylpiperazine-2,5-dione (1), 3,6-bis(7'-methyl-3'-indolyl)-1,4-dimethylpiperazine-2,5-dione (2) and 3,6-bis-(6'-chloro-3'-indolyl)-1,4-dimethylpiperazine-2,5-dione (...