BACKGROUND Some Ficus species have been used in traditional African medicine in the treatment of diabetes. The antidiabetic potential of certain species has been confirmed in vivo but the mechanism of activity remains uncertain. The aim of this study was to determine the activity and to investigate the mechanism of antidiabetic activity of ten selected Ficus species through inhibition of α-amyl...

We examined the mechanism by which hypertriglyceridemia interferes with the Roche Diagnostics "Amylochrome" procedure for measurement of amylase in lactescent samples with normal and above-normal amylase activity. The serum blank recommended in the Amylochrome protocol to compensate for lactescence remains inappropriately turbid, compared with the test, and is partly responsible for the underes...

In the production of industrial enzymes, filamentous fungi are attractive as cell factories because they can secrete large amounts of protein into the medium. Many important industrial enzymes such as amylases, lipases and cellulase are produced by fermentation of filamentous fungi. Aspergillus oryzae is well-known filamentous producer of alpha amylase and has GRAS status. In the present study ...

A continuous method for the determination of alpha-amylase activity with a defined substrate has been published by Rauscher et al. in Berichte der Osterreichischen Gesellschaft für Klinische Chemie 4, 150 (1981). It offers the following advantages: good practicability, easy adaptation to analysers and short incubation time. Twenty-one laboratories took part in a multicentric study on this metho...

A modification of the sensitive agar diffusion method was developed for macro-scale determination of alfa-amylase. The proposed modifications lower costs with the utilisation of starch as substrate and agar as supporting medium. Thus, a standard curve was built using alfa-amylase solution from Aspergillus oryzae, with concentrations ranging from 2.4 to 7,500 U.mL-1. Clear radial diffusion zones...

The aim of this study was to investigate the short-term effects of green tea consumption on selected salivary defense proteins, antibacterial capacity and anti-oxidation activity in taekwondo (TKD) athletes, following intensive training. Twenty-two TKD athletes performed a 2-hr TKD training session. After training, participants ingested green tea (T, caffeine 6 mg/kg and catechins 22 mg/kg) or ...

In his original study of Pseudomonas saccharophila, Doudoroff (1940) found that an inducible extracellular amylase was formed when cells were grown with soluble starch or maltose. He also observed indications of intracellular amylase activity. The present study was undertaken in order to characterize further the amylase(s) of P. saccharophila. Two enzymes with different physical and enzymatic p...

Alpha amylase production using microbial source and solid state fermentation has been conducted for past few years in search of thermostable enzyme. Owing to the prolific use of thermostable alpha amylase in various industries like paper, food, detergent, brewing and starch liquefaction process, the production of alpha amylase is still going on. In the present work, Bacillus subtilis (ATCC 6633...

The relation between music listening and stress is inconsistently reported across studies, with the major part of studies being set in experimental settings. Furthermore, the psychobiological mechanisms for a potential stress-reducing effect remain unclear. We examined the potential stress-reducing effect of music listening in everyday life using both subjective and objective indicators of stre...

We separated and measured amylase isoenzymes in the serum and urine of 3036 normal persons by electrophoresis on a thin layer of polyacrylamide gel. We wished to establish the normal pattern of these isoenzymes and to evaluate the usefulness of this method of electrophoresis in clinical diagnosis. Results for patients with hyper- or hypofunctioning pancreas and salivary glands suggested that es...