The cholinesterase inhibitors donepezil, rivastigmine and galantamine have a modest and transient benefit in Alzheimer's disease. Their known adverse effects include bradycardia. A Canadian case-control study conducted between 2003 and 2008 showed a statistically significant increase in the risk of hospitalisation for bradycardia among patients who had been taking a cholinesterase inhibitor for...

The cholinergic dysfunction in AD is not necessarily predominant (1,4,5) and responsivity to a cholinesterase inhibitor is not diagnostic for Alzheimer’s disease. Normal young people have improved on psychometric measures in memory and attention after physostigmine challenge (3). Additionally, postmortem neurochemical measures of cholinergic function in AD patients do not correlate with ante mo...

Cholinesterase was purified from human serum by a three-stage procedure involving chromatography on DEAE-cellulose at pH4.0, an electrofocusing technique and gel filtration on Sephadex G-200. The final product was purified 13000-fold with a yield of 54%, and only one protein and one cholinesterase band could be demonstrated by polyacrylamide-disc electrophoresis. The catalytic properties appear...

Enzymes hydrolysing acetylcholine have attracted much attention because acetylcholine is concemed with the functioning of the nervous system. The extensive literature on cholinesterases has been reviewed at intervals (Zeller, 1948; Koelle & Gilman, 1949; Augustinsson, 1950; Nachmansohn & Wilson, 1951; Whittaker, 1951; Davies, 1954; Bergmann, 1958; Davies & Green, 1958). Although there is ample ...

In the present study, a series of N-substituted derivatives of 2-phenylethylamine has been synthesized. The reaction of 2-phenylethylamine (1) with benzene sulfonyl chloride (2) yielded N-(2-phenylethyl) benzenesulfonamide (3), which further on treatment with alkyl/acyl halides (4a-i) in the presence of sodium hydride furnished into N-substituted sulfonamides (5a-i). These derivatives were cha...

Serum cholinesterase activity and the dibucaine numbers have been determined by using a hydrogen peroxide electrode and the enzyme choline oxidase immobilized on a nylon net. The analysis procedure is extremely simple and very fast allowing 30 cholinesterase determinations per hour. Both cholinesterase activity and dibucaine number measurements could be performed in 5 min and by using serum sam...

Sera of various phenotypes at serum cholinesterase locus 1, including the newly recognized phenotypes E1 aE1j, E1 uE1j, and E1 fE1J, were studied by immunodiffusion and rocket immunoelectrophoresis. The sera containing the E1j allele show reduced numbers of immunologically active cholinesterase molecules. This finding is consistent with the previously advanced hypothesis that E1j results in red...

The influence of ketamine upon human plasma cholinesterase (E.C. 3.1.1.8) was determined by means of a colorimetric assay technique at 25 degrees C, pH 7.7 with butyrylthiocholine as substrate. Ketamine caused a reversible inhibition of cholinesterase (pI50= 2.75; apparent Ki=4.94X10(-4) M). The kinetic analysis of the inhibitory action revealed a mixed competitive/non-competitive type of mecha...

The aim of this study was to determine whether there was any relationship between body fat and pseudo(or plasma) cholinesterase. Hutchinson, McCance & Widdowson (I~sI), in reporting their studies of undernutrition and feeding, pointed out that, at the end of rehabilitation when men became ‘fat’, the average pseudo-cholinesterase was higher than normal. It therefore seemed of interest to investi...