This study was designed to answer the question whether human lymphocytes and spleen cells were capable of de novo purine biosynthesis. Experiments were carried out in cell-free extracts prepared from human spleen, and from a cell line established from Burkitt lymphoma. Burkitt lymphoma cells and human spleen cells could synthesize the first and second intermediates of the purine biosynthetic pa...

The objective of this study was to examine the effects of 6 days of emersion on nitrogen metabolism and excretion in the Chinese soft-shelled turtle, Pelodiscus sinensis. Despite having a soft shell with a cutaneous surface that is known to be water permeable, P. sinensis lost only ~2% of body mass and was able to maintain its hematocrit and plasma osmolality, [Na(+)] and [Cl(-)] during 6 days ...

BACKGROUND/AIMS It has been proposed that, in acute liver failure, skeletal muscle adapts to become the principle organ responsible for removal of blood-borne ammonia by increasing glutamine synthesis, a reaction that is catalyzed by the cytosolic ATP-dependent enzyme glutamine synthetase. To address this issue, glutamine synthetase expression and activities were measured in skeletal muscle of ...

*Correspondence: Michael Stoukides, Department of Chemical Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Building E13, Laboratory of Electrochemical Processes, Thessaloniki 54124, Greece e-mail: [email protected] Developed in the early 1900s, the “Haber–Bosch” synthesis is the dominant NH3 synthesis process. Parallel to catalyst optimization, current research efforts are also focused...

or,-Cycloserine (5 to 10 mvl), when added to isolated hepatocytes, is shown to inhibit aspartate aminotransferase predominantly in the cytosol. At low concentrations (0.1 to 0.2 mu) it selectively inhibits alanine aminotransferase. Aminooxyacetate (0.5 mu) irreversibly inhibits all transaminase activity provided the inhibitor is added prior to substrate addition. Neither cycloserine nor aminoox...

Stoichiometrically exact, candidate pathways, i.e., mechanisms, for deriving the rate law of the catalytic synthesis of ammonia have been determined through the synthesis of networks of known elementary reactions constituting such pathways. This has been undertaken to reassess the validity of available mechanisms and to explore the possible existence of additional ones for the catalytic synthes...

Carbamyl phosphate synthetase (from Escherichia coli) consists of a 7.3S protomeric unit that contains one heavy polypeptide chain (molecular weight about 130,000) and one light chain (molecular weight about 42,000). The heavy and light chains were separated by gel filtration in the presence of 1 M potassium thiocyanate. In contrast to the native enzyme and the reconstituted enzyme (prepared by...

In Streptomyces sp. 3022a, anthranilate synthetase is composed of two non-identical subunits. The major subunit (molecular weight, 72,000) converts chorismic acid to anthranilic acid, using ammonia as the source of the amino group. The smaller subunit (molecular weight 28,000 to 29,000) confers on the enzyme the ability to use glutamine instead of ammonia as a substrate. In this study, reactivi...