We investigated the effects of sap of the common oleander Nerium indicum (Apocyanaceae) on male fertility and spermatogenesis in the oriental tobacco budworm Helicoverpa assulta. We found that continuous feeding of oleander sap during the larval period significantly affects fertility in males but not in females. This effect was also induced by direct injection of oleander sap into the hemocoel ...

Alpha-synuclein (α-Syn) is a 140 aa presynaptic protein which belongs to a group of natively unfolded proteins that are unstructured in aqueous solutions. The aggregation rate of α-Syn is accelerated in the presence of physiological levels of cellular polyamines. Here we applied single molecule AFM force spectroscopy to characterize the effect of spermidine on the very first stages of α-Syn agg...

Vibrio cholerae, the causative agent of the devastating diarrheal disease cholera, canform biofilms on diverse biotic and abiotic surfaces. Biofilm formation is important for the survival of this organism both in its natural environment and in the human host. Development of V. cholerae biofilms are regulated by complex regulatory networks that respond to environmental signals. One of these sign...

New mutations of the polyamine pathway of Neurospora crassa fell into three categories. The majority affected ornithine decarboxylase and lay at the previously defined spe-1 locus. One mutation, JP100, defining the new spe-2 locus, eliminated S-adenosyl-methionine decarboxylase and led to putrescine accumulation. Revertants of this mutation suggested that the locus encodes the enzyme. Two other...

In the polyamine back-conversion pathway, spermine and spermidine are first acetylated by spermidine/spermine N1 -acetyltransferase (SSAT) and then oxidized by polyamine oxidase (PAO) to produce spermidine and putrescine respectively. Although PAO was first purified more than two decades ago, the protein has not yet been linked to genomic sequences. In the present study, we apply a BLAST search...

Polyamines play an important role in the maintenance of intestinal permeability. Therefore we aimed to determine effects probiotics and omega 3 fatty acids on serum polyamine levels colitis. Fifty BALB/c mice were randomly grouped as normal, colitis with no treatment applied, treated by (VSL#3), omega-3, both omega-3. Experimental was induced injection 200 mg/kg 2,4-Dinitrobenzenesulfonic acid ...

To establish an effective and concise procedure for determining the concentrations of spermidine and spermine, several functional molecules based on phenolphthalein and two crown loops were constructed. Host 5 with a dimethylamino group showed excellent selectivity for spermidine and spermine among other biogenic amines and high sensitivity compared with basic host 1.

A large number of studies applying inhibitors of polyamine biosynthesis have indicated that these compounds are required for animal cell proliferation. Here we show, using a transgenic rat model with activated polyamine catabolism, that a certain critical concentration of the higher polyamines spermidine and spermine is required for liver regeneration. Partial hepatectomy of transgenic rats exp...

1Plant Breeding Institute, ARC, SF-31600 Jokioinen, Finland; 2Department of Genetics, SF-00014 University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland In a recent article describing the effects of various reaction conditions, Blanchard et al. ~1~ ment ioned that spermine and spermidine at concentrations between 0.5 and 3 mM had no effect on PCR amplification ~2'3> with their sequence-specific primers. Becaus...