The effect of the plant growth regulator, triacontanol (TRIA) on lipid peroxidation was studied in three different systems: (i) isolated chloroplasts of spinach (Spinacea oleracea L.) leaves; (ii) egg lecithin liposomes; and (iii) soybean lipoxygenase (LOX) system. The nonenzymatic lipid peroxidation in isolated chloroplasts and egg lecithin liposomes was measured as the amount of thiobarbituri...

Lecithin was fi rst isolated from egg yolk in the 1850’s. The Greek word for egg yolk, lekithos, is the basis for the name lecithin. Lecithin has a reputation for being “brain food” because of its high concentration of phosphatidyl choline, a nutrient which supports primary brain functions including memory, thought, and muscular control. Phosphatidyl choline is the biological precursor to acety...

When Bacillus anthracis is grown in egg yolk medium, a reaction occurs which is presumably due to lecithinase (Colmer, 1948; McGaughey and Chu, 1948; Chu, 1949). In liquid egg yolk medium the lecithinase reaction is characterized by the formation of an opalescent suspension and flocculation of particles which rise to the top of the medium as a curd. A test such as this is usually referred to as...

The surface pressure-area curves of synthetic (dipalmitoyl), egg, and yeast lecithins showed that the limiting areas depend on the degree of unsaturation of the fatty acid residues (dipalmitoyl < egg < yeast lecithin). The surface potential of phosphatidal choline (240 mv) was lower than that of the dipalmitoyl lecithin (380 mv), both at 60 A2/molecule. This difference in surface potentials is ...

In this study, 162 students in the 6 year Pharmacy Program at the School of Pharmacy, Iwate Medical University were asked to prepare liposomal preparations using chicken egg yolk and to evaluate their properties with the aim of developing novel liposomes. High-purity lecithins are generally used for preparing liposomes but they are expensive. On the other hand, egg yolk has various components, ...

About the year 1846 Gobley succeeded in obtaining from egg yolk and other organs a substance of a fat-like nature containing nitrogen and phosphorus which he called lecithin [1846]. This substance was soluble in alcohol and in ether, formed an emulsion when rubbed up with water and yielded fatty acids and glycerophosphoric acid on hydrolysis. These observations of Gobley furnished a basis for t...

The kinetics of dissolution of dispersions of egg phosphatidylcholine (lecithin) by bile salts was studied by observing the decrease in turbidity as mixed micelles of lecithin and bile salt were formed. The rate of dissolution of lecithin corresponding to the formation of mixed micelles was studied in the presence of dihydroxy bile salts, sodium deoxycholate, sodium chenodeoxycholate, sodium ur...

The work on liver lecithins by Levene and Ingvaldsen’ and by Levene and Simms,z has shown the existence of lecithins which are distinguished from one another by the nature of their unsaturated fatty acids. There were isolated from liver lecithin, two unsaturated fatty acids, oleic and arachidonic, as well as two saturated acids, palmitic and stearic. Hence on the basis of the present findings i...