These associations also appear to be consistent with the hypothesis that, as a cytokine, S100B exerts a neurotrophic role (1 ), although more extensive studies of the relationships of S100B with other brain constituents will be needed to support this possibility. Previous investigations have reported that amniotic fluid is devoid of detectable S100B in physiological conditions, whereas detectab...

BACKGROUND In patients treated with azathioprine, deficient thiopurine methyltransferase (TPMT) activity has been associated with haematologic toxicity. OBJECTIVES To determine how many Saskatchewan rheumatologists routinely pre-screen TPMT activity before prescribing azathioprine. Further, to retrospectively review TPMT activity levels from pre-screening in one patient cohort. METHODS All ...

To the Editor, I read the paper by Belen et al. published in a recent issue of this journal with great interest [1]. They reported a 15-year-old girl with T-ALL who developed severe pancytopenia during consolidation and maintenance therapy despite dose reduction of 6-mercaptopurine (MP). They found thiopurine S-methyltransferase (TPMT) *3A/*3C polymorphisms upon TPMT genotyping. Prednisolone th...

carbohydrate-deficient glycoprotein syndrome. Electrophoresis 1997;18: 1819–26. 12. Tagliaro F, Crivellente F, Manetto G, Puppi I, Deyl Z, Marigo M. Optimised determination of carbohydrate deficient transferrin isoforms (CDT) in serum by capillary zone electrophoresis. Electrophoresis 1998;19:3033–9. 13. Crivellente F, Fracasso G, Valentini R, Manetto G, Riviera AP, Tagliaro F. Improved method ...

BACKGROUND The genetic polymorphism of thiopurine methyltransferase (TPMT) is well characterized in most populations. Four common polymorphic alleles are associated with impaired activity of the enzyme. These are TPMT*2 (238G>C), TPMT*3B (c.460G>A), TPMT*3A (c.460G>A and c.719A>G) and TPMT*3C (c.719A>G). The aim of the present study was to determine the frequency of TPMT polymorphisms and their...

BACKGROUND Thiopurines (azathioprine and 6-mercaptopurine) are highly effective medications but with potential adverse effects. Thiopurine methyltransferase (TMPT) is the key enzyme in their pharmacokinetics and is genetically regulated. A low activity of TPMT is associated with myelotoxicity. The genotype and enzyme activity can vary by ethnicity. AIM To study the activity and genotype of TP...

The drug-metabolizing enzyme thiopurine methyltransferase (TPMT) has become one of the best examples of pharmacogenomics to be translated into routine clinical practice. TPMT metabolizes the thiopurines 6-mercaptopurine, 6-thioguanine, and azathioprine, drugs that are widely used for treatment of acute leukemias, inflammatory bowel diseases, and other disorders of immune regulation. Since the d...

Thiopurine S-methyltransferase (TPMT) belongs to the Class I S-adenosylmethionine-dependent methyltransferase (SAM-MT) super family of structurally related proteins. Common to the members of this large protein family is the catalysis of methylation reactions using S-adenosylmethionine (SAM) as a methyl group donor, although SAM-MTs act on a wide range of different substrates and carry out numer...

BACKGROUND Interindividual differences in therapeutic efficacy in patients treated with thiopurines might be explained by the presence of thiopurine S-methyltransferase (TPMT) alleles that encode for reduced TPMT enzymatic activity. It is therefore of value to know an individual's inherent capacity to express TPMT. METHOD We developed a pyrosequencing method to detect 10 single-nucleotide pol...

Involvement of the bacterial thiopurine methyltransferase (bTPMT) in natural selenium methylation by freshwater was investigated. A freshwater environment that had no known selenium contamination but exhibited reproducible emission of dimethyl selenide (DMSe) or dimethyl diselenide (DMDSe) when it was supplemented with an organic form of selenium [(methyl)selenocysteine] or an inorganic form of...