Retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) degeneration is a crucial event in dry age-related macular degeneration and gyrate atrophy. The polyamine spermidine has been shown to induce RPE cell death in vitro. The present study aimed to establish a novel in vivo model of spermidine-induced RPE degeneration and to determine whether spermidine-induced RPE cell death involves oxidative mechanisms. In this s...

Drought is one of the most important environmental factors limiting the cultivation of ornamental plants in the green space. The effects of spermidine and salicylic acid on hollyhock (Alcea rosea L.)under drought stress were investigated. At first, the plants were sprayed with 3 doses of spermidine and 3 doses of salicylic acid (control, 100, 200 and 400 μM) for three consecut...

Ubiquitous polyamine spermidine is not required for normal planktonic growth of Bacillus subtilis but is essential for robust biofilm formation. However, the structural features of spermidine required for B. subtilis biofilm formation are unknown and so are the molecular mechanisms of spermidine-stimulated biofilm development. We report here that in a spermidine-deficient B. subtilis mutant, th...

Putrescine, spermidine and spermine are organic cations implicated in learning, memory consolidation, reconsolidation and neurogenesis. These physiological processes are closely related, and convincing evidence indicates that neurogenesis is implicated both, in the establishment and maintenance of remote contextual fear memory. Although brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is a key mediator...

We screened genes responsive to transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta 1) protein in a human hepatoma cell line (Hep3B) using a PCR-mediated differential display technique, in order to investigate the mechanisms involved in TGF-beta-induced growth suppression. We found a gene that was down-regulated by TGF-beta 1 to be completely identical in an approx. 620 bp segment to the gene for the enz...

Investigation was done to find out the effect of different polyamines viz., spermine and spermidine (5, 10, 20 mg/l) biostimulants 2 % Novel (banana pseudostem sap) 2% cow urine as foliar spray on growth parameters rose var. Top Secret.
 Plant height, number branches leaves were found be significantly higher with biostimulants. Maximum plant height in plants treated mg/l while maximum sper...

1. The effect of spermidine on the mescaline-induced changes of brain-cortex ribosomes was studied by adding spermidine during the treatment of goat braincortex slices with mescaline. 2. Mescaline treatment of brain-cortex slices removed a portion of the endogenous spermidine from ribosomes and this removal was significantly prevented when spermidine was present during mescaline treatment. 3. S...

Only the dextro isomer of ethambutol inhibited mycobacterial spermidine synthase and spermidine biosynthesis. Inhibition of mycobacterial spermidine synthase appeared to be specific. Spermidine synthase from Mycobacterium fortuitum, which was resistant to ethambutol in vitro, required a higher concentration of ethambutol for its inhibition than the enzyme of susceptible Mycobacterium bovis.

The major polyamine of turnip yellow mosaic virus has been identified as spermidine by gas chromatography and mass spectrometry of the trifluoroacetamido derivative. Very small amounts of putrescine and cadaverine, but not norspermidine, have been detected in the virus. The spermidine contents of numerous virus preparations were in the range 200-700 molecules per virion and were considerably in...

The transport of spermidine into a cyanobacterium, Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803, was characterized by measuring the uptake of 14C-spermidine. Spermidine transport was shown to be saturable with an apparent affinity constant (Km) value of 67 microM and a maximal velocity (Vmax) value of 0.45 nmol/min/mg protein. Spermidine uptake was pHdependent with the pH optimum being 8.0. The competition exper...