In male BALB/c mice, a combination of individually non-lethal doses of 6-mercaptopurine and endotoxin was significantly lethal. In contrast, mice treated with phenobarbital were resistant to this lethal effect. The high levels of thioinosinic acid in mice that were treated with endotoxin contrasted significantly with the levels in phenobarbital-treated mice. On the other hand, the concentration...

The carbapenem-induced endotoxin release was evaluated using experimental models of gram-negative bacterial sepsis in Wistar rats. Infections with Escherichia coli, Serratia marcescens, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Proteus vulgaris and Proteus mirabilis resulted in an increase of the plasma endotoxin concentration after treatment with ceftazidime and carbapenems including imip...

Endotoxin may cause abnormal deposition of platelet-endotoxin aggregates, and this event could have damaging effects. We compared the aggregation characteristics of platelets from rabbits made tolerant to the lethal effects of endotoxin with those of platelets from normal rabbits. Platelets from tolerant rabbits aggregated more rapidly (greater than 90 s faster) in the presence of endotoxin tha...

Severe melioidosis is a life-threatening, systemic bacterial infection caused by Burkholderia pseudomallei. A prospective, randomized treatment trial was conducted in northeast Thailand to compare ceftazidime (a penicillin-binding protein [PBP]-3-specific agent that causes release of large amounts of endotoxin in vitro) and imipenem (a PBP-2-specific agent that kills B. pseudomallei more rapidl...

There are many articles in the medical and surgical literature investigating the diagnosis, pathophysiology, and treatment of endotoxin shock. However, the information concerning catecholamine release after endotoxin is not well clarified. The present study was undertaken to describe precisely the dynamics of catecholamine release after endotoxin and, in addition, to ascertain the effect of pha...

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...

Endotoxin tolerance was first described in a study that exposed animals to a sublethal dose of bacterial endotoxin. The animals subsequently survived a lethal injection of endotoxin. This refractory state is associated with the innate immune system and, in particular, with monocytes and macrophages, which act as the main participants. Several mechanisms are involved in the control of endotoxin ...

Given the presence of engineered nanomaterials in consumers' products and their application in nanomedicine, nanosafety assessment is becoming increasingly important. In particular, immunosafety aspects are being actively investigated. In nanomaterial immunosafety testing strategies, it is important to consider that nanomaterials and nanoparticles are very easy to become contaminated with endot...

Bacterial endotoxin (lipopolysaccharide) has a variety of biological and immunological activities. Endotoxin-induced physiological changes in several organs might modify the pharmacokinetic behavior, including the biliary and urinary excretions and hepatic metabolism, of various drugs. We have conducted a series of studies as part of a program for the development of guidelines for the safe use ...

Evidence is presented that The normal RES extracts endotoxin from the circulation and inactivates it very rapidly. When the RES has been damaged, whether by a blockading agent, such as thorotrast, or by a reversible degree of hemorrhagic shock, it cannot extract more than a small per cent of the amount of the endotoxin the normal system can extract. Of that fraction of endotoxin which is extrac...