Hereditary angioedema (HAE), is an autosomal immunological disease, that is characterized by repetitive diffuse non-pitting painless edema without urticaria or pruritus. HAE is a rare disease with wide range of manifestation, thus diagnosis can be easily missed. Screening for HAE should be warranted in any patient with following manifestations; recurrent self-limiting unexplained abdominal pain...

The ges-1 gene of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans codes for a nonspecific carboxylesterase that is expressed only in the intestinal lineage. This esterase has turned out to be a convenient biochemical marker for lineage-specific differentiation. In the present paper, we describe the production of several C. elegans strains that lack detectable activity of the ges-1 esterase. To isolate thes...

We compared the general activity and heavy metal resistance of non-specific esterases in two populations of the leaf beetle Chrysomela lapponica from habitats severely contaminated by heavy metals (mostly Ni and Cu) and two populations from unpolluted habitats. Concentrations of Ni and Cu in adult beetles from the most polluted site were 7.7 and 3.6 times higher that in beetles from unpolluted ...

In order to discover early vital reactions the authors investigated the changes in the activity of alkaline phosphatase, acid phosphatase and esterase in antemortem and postmortem skin wounds. Dermal connective tissues adjacent to the wound edge showed a decrease in the activity of the three enzymes from 2 hours after vital wounding. Surrounding the decreased zone, along the wound edge, the act...

The investigations of Dale and his coworkers (1, 2) on the chemical transmission of parasympathetic nerve stimulation and of Walker (3, 4) on the use of physostigmine and prostigmin in myasthenia gravis have stimulated interest in the choline-esterase activity of serum. Lucas, Hall, and Ettinger (5) studied the serum esterase activity of 200 subjects and obtained results that were in essential ...

The stereoselective hydrolysis of esmolol in whole blood and in its separated components from rat, rabbit and human was investigated. Blood esterase activities were variable in different species in the order of rat>rabbit>human. Rat plasma showed the high esterase activity and had no stereoselectivity to enantiomers. Rabbit red blood cell (RBC) membrane, RBC cytosol and plasma all hydrolyzed es...