A controlled trial of iron prophylaxis (3 ml intramuscular iron dextran) to two-month-old infants was carried out on the north coast of Papua New Guinea where there is high transmission of malaria. The initial hypothesis was that iron deficiency increased susceptibility to infections and thus iron supplementation in a situation of actual or potential iron deficiency would diminish this suscepti...

In previous studies we showed that intravenous infusion of Dextran 500 in the rat causes blunting of the velocity profile of red blood cells in venules at low shear rates. To determine whether this blunting is associated with the formation of red blood cell aggregates, we measured the length and width of particles in the venular flow stream at systemic hematocrits up to 20% with a high-speed vi...

We evaluated the effect of dextran on values for total protein in serum as measured by the biuret method with five widely used automated instruments: the American Monitor Parallel; the Du Pont aca II; the Roche Cobas-Bio; the Kodak Ektachem 400; and the Beckman Astra 8. Dextran concentrations as great as 25 or 30 g/L had relatively little or no influence on total protein measurements by the lat...

Macromolecular crowding plays a significant role in the solubility and stability of biomacromolecules. In this work, the thermo-sensitive poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) has been employed as a model system to study the specific ion effects on the solubility of macromolecules in crowded environments of dextran and polyethylene glycol (PEG). Our study demonstrates that crowding agents can in...

Tea polyphenols (TPPs) can bind with proteins and peptides through hydrophobic interaction and hydrogen bonding. Casein, ovalbumin, and dextran were used to investigate their influence on the interactions between TPP and gelatin and, therefore, to investigate their influence on TPP taste. Casein-g-dextran (CgD) and ovalbumin-g-dextran (OgD) grafting conjugates were prepared through the Maillard...

Eleven patients with rheumatoid arthritis received a total dose infusion of iron dextran for anaemia. Two of them had anaphylactic reactions and the remaining nine an exacerbation of synovitis. Quantitative infrared thermal imaging was used to assess the extent and distribution of joint involvement resulting from this therapy. In all eight patients examined the 'thermographic index' increased i...

Adhesion of polymorphonuclear granulocytes (PMNs) in microvessels occurs in the presence of shear forces exerted by the blood flow. To model this in vitro, phorbol myristate acetate (PMA)-activated PMN were exposed to shear stress on cultured human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) and on plastic dishes coated with bovine serum albumin (BSA). PMN adhesion to HUVECs averaged 36% of the t...

Dextranase (α-1,6-D-glucan, 6-glucanohydrolase; E.C.3.2.1.11) is an enzyme which hydrolizes the α1,6 glucosidic linkages in dextran, found in higher plants, mammalian tissues, fungi and bacteria [1]. The enzyme has several applications in medicine and sugar industry because of its hydrolizing capacity of dextran. The presence of dextran has many negative effects in sugar processing levels such ...

unsuitable as colloidal infusion solutions, for which reason they are depolymerized by acid hydrolysis to products of suitable molecular size (average molecular weight 7500). This book constitutes a review of the history of the development of dextran to its present place, and a review of most of the literature available on the subject. The author, Anders Gr6nwall, is Professor of Clinical Chemi...

AIM To assess the short-term efficacy of hypotonic 0.18% sodium hyaluronate in patients with evaporative tear-sufficient dry eye due to lipid tear deficiency (LTD). METHODS This was a randomised, double-blind, controlled, exploratory study. A total of 10 patients with dry eye due to LTD were treated as follows: one drop of hypotonic 0.18% sodium hyaluronate in one eye and one drop of isotonic...