To say that the once very limited indications for colchicine have undergone a subtle but definite and dramatic change in recent years would not be an overstatement. This old drug, which has been known for centuries, was used for relieving and preventing acute attacks of gouty arthritis for over 200 years, but until recently, no other clinical uses had been established. The 1985 edition of Good-...

Function in the adrenocortical system is markedly altered by availability of food. Basal activity is lowest and stress responsivity highest in the morning when nocturnal rats eat approximately 90% of their daily calories during the dark. After an overnight fast, basal corticotrophin and corticosteroid levels are elevated, and responsivity to stressors is decreased. Central neural sites that con...

INTRODUCTION Familial Mediterranean fever (FMF) is the most common hereditary autoinflammatory syndrome. The treatment of choice is colchicine. However, ~40% of patients are only partial responders and 5-10% are non-responders. Advances in the understanding of the role of pyrin in the regulation of interleukin (IL)-1β activation has led to use of anti-IL-1 agents for colchicine-resistant FMF. ...

For skin gene therapy, achieving prolonged high-level gene expression in a significant percentage of keratinocytes (KC) is difficult because we cannot selectively target KC stem cells. We now demonstrate that topical colchicine treatment can be used to select, in vivo, KC progenitor cells transduced with the multidrug resistance gene (MDR1). When human skin equivalents containing MDR1-transduce...

Results Compared with the control group, more patients, homozygous for the M694 mutation, suffered from a severe disease (p=0.001), had higher frequency of attacks before and during colchicine treatment (p=0.0001 and 0.0007, respectively), had more related diseases (p=0.0373) and needed higher dose of colchicine to control their disease (p=0.0001). Most other features tested (Table 1) appeared ...

To determine the influence of colchicine on adrenocortical function in vivo, we gave significant amounts subcutaneously to rats and observed the distribution to the anterior pituitary and adrenal glands. Corticosteroids in the serum and adrenal gland were increased remarkably by the administration of colchicine in a dose-dependent manner. Maximum elevation was achieved around 2.5 hours after th...

(1) Dorsal irises from normal and lentectomized eyes of the newt Notophthalmus viridescens were cultured in vitro in the presence of colchicine (1-25 x 10~ to 2-5 x 10~ M), vinblastine sulfate (4-4xlO~) and cytochalasin B (20/tg/ml). Explants were treated for 24 h and implanted into host eyes of previously lentectomized newts. (2) In regenerates treated with colchicine at stages prior to the on...

Introduction: According to previous studies, colchicine causes neuronal destruction and learning depression. In this project, effects of colchicine injection into the CA1 and interaction between colchicine and nitric oxide (NO) in this area on the expression of drug-seeking behavior were investigated. Methods: Wistar rats (250-300 g) were bilaterally cannulated at the CA1 area. Colchicine (2...

Background and objectives: Colchicum kurdicum (Bornm.) Stef. is a flowering perennial monocotyledon plant that has many important bioactive compounds especially colchicine and colchicine derivatives. In this study, the ultrasound-assisted acidic-solvent extraction method coupled with response-surface method was presented as the successful method for large scale extract...

SIR, We read with interest the report by Scheinberg et al.' of DMSO and colchicine therapy in amyloid disease. The beneficial effects of colchicine on systemic amyloidosis have been suggested by other investigators.2We also have investigated the effect of colchicine on patients with primary (five patients), reactive (three patients), and familial Mediterranean fever (FMF) related secondary amyl...