We modified two "kit" procedures for plasma ammonia to make them suitable for use with newborn and pediatric patients. Available methods either require too large a specimen, are insufficiently sensitive in the normal range, or are too cumbersome. One was an enzymatic (Sigma Chemical Co., St. Louis, Mo. 63178), the other a cation-exchange (Hyland, Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626) method. The modified m...

*Many methods for measuring creatine are known, the principal ones being direct calorimetric assay (l), indirect calorimetric assay (2), and destruction with bacterial adaptive enzymes (3). However, none of these methods are specific nor are they sensitive enough to detect very small amounts of creatine. rIhese assays have been used to examine urine and serum for creatine content, but, because ...

Manual procedures suitable for use on standard benchtop spectrophotometers have been developed for the enzymatic determination of Na+ and K+ in serum. Both assays require only minimal modification of reagents already available for BM/Hitachi analyzers and are performed in an endpoint mode, allowing up to 20 assays per run. The addition of a stop reagent is required--dipotassium EDTA for the Na+...

We have developed a quantitative histochemical assay for measurement of succinate dehydrogenase (SDH) activity in single motoneurons. A computer image processing system was used to quantify the histochemical enzyme reaction product and to follow the time course of the reaction. The optimal concentration for each of the ingredients of the incubation medium for the SDH reaction was determined and...

An easy to perform, rapid and precise assay for invertase is introduced. In it enzyme activity is determined spectrophotometrically from a coupled enzymatic reaction.

methylmalonic acidemia (mma) is usually caused by a deficiency of the enzyme methylmalonyl-coa mutase (mcm), a defect in the transport or synthesis of its cofactor, adenosyl-cobalamin (cbla, cblb, cblc, cblf, cbld, and cblx), or deficiency of the enzyme methylmalonyl-coa epimerase. a comprehensive diagnostic approach involves investigations of metabolites with tandem mass spectrometry, organic ...

A simple spectrophotometric method for the assay of steroid 5α-reductase (5α-SR) was developed in which 5α-dihydrotestosterone (5α-DHT) and 5α-androstane-3α,17β-diol (5α-diol), metabolites formed in the NADPH-dependent reduction of testosterone with enzyme sources of 5α-SR, were measured by enzymatic cycling using 3α-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase in the presence of excess thionicotinamide-adenin...

Simple and sensitive spectrophotometric and radiochemical procedures are described for the assay of acetyl-CoA:arylamine N-acetyltransferase (NAT; EC 2.3.1.5), which catalyzes the reaction acetyl-CoA + arylamine----N-acetylated arylamine + CoASH. The methods are applicable to crude tissue homogenates and blood lysates. The spectrophotometric assay is characterized by two features: (i) NAT activ...

We used the fluorometric substrate, pGlu-Arg-Thr-Lys-Arg-MCA and the C-terminal peptide of human 7B2(155-185), a specific inhibitor of prohormone convertase 2 (PC2), to specifically measure the enzymatic activity of the prohormone convertases, PC2. Using lysates from the pancreatic alpha cell line, alphaTC1-6 cells, which contain moderate levels of PC2 enzymatic activity, we determined that the...

Potential antioxidative activities of enzymatic extracts from seven species of brown seaweeds were evaluated using four different reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavenging assays containing DPPH (1,1-diphenyl-2-pricrylhydrazyl) free radical, superoxide anion, hydroxyl radical and hydrogen peroxide scavenging assay. The brown seaweeds were enzymatically hydrolyzed to prepare water-soluble extract...