Proteus mirabilis, a common agent of nosocomially acquired and catheter-associated urinary tract infection, is the most frequent cause of infection-induced bladder and kidney stones. Urease-catalyzed urea hydrolysis initiates stone formation in urine and can be inhibited by acetohydroxamic acid and other structural analogs of urea. Since P. mirabilis urease is inducible with urea, there has bee...

Globally, urea is the most widely used nitrogen fertilizer and is made accessible to plants via the urease reaction. However, sequence information for the plant enzyme is scarce. A cDNA encoding urease from soybean (Glycine max) has been cloned and sequence information has been obtained for two alleles (11 and 19 kbp, respectively) of the potato (Solanum tuberosum, cv. Desiree) urease gene and ...

BACKGROUND Helicobacter pylori produces large amounts of urease presumably to be prepared for the rare event of a sudden acid exposure. The hypothesis that H pylori is acid sensitive and protein production is inhibited by low pH was examined. METHODS H pylori or its soluble enzymes were incubated buffered or unbuffered at a pH ranging from 2-7 in the presence of 5 mM urea for 30 minutes. Afte...

The pathogenesis associated with Helicobacter pylori infection is the result of both bacterial factors and the host response. We have previously shown that H. pylori binds to CD74 on gastric epithelial cells. In this study, we sought to identify the bacterial protein responsible for this interaction. H. pylori urease from a pool of bacterial surface proteins was found to coprecipitate with CD74...

OBJECTIVE Urease enzymes produced by oral bacteria generate ammonia, which can have a significant impact on the oral ecology and, consequently, on oral health. To evaluate the relationship of urease with dental plaque microbial profiles in children as it relates to dental caries, and to identify the main contributors to this activity. METHODS 82 supragingival plaque samples were collected fro...

The objective of this study was to determine (i) if complementation of ureB-negative Helicobacter pylori restores colonization and (ii) if urease is a useful reporter for promoter activity in vivo. Strains used were M6, M6DeltaureB, and 10 recombinant derivatives of M6 or M6DeltaureB in which urease expression was under the control of different H. pylori promoters. Mice were orally inoculated w...

Colonization by Helicobacter pylori partly depends on acid-dependent adherence by urease to gastric mucin. To further verify the relevance of urease adherence to colonization, the influence of acidity on the binding sites of H. pylori urease was investigated. When enzyme-based in vitro ligand capture assays were used, the effect of acidity on the binding site of H. pylori urease was determined ...

Helicobacter pylori strain J166 recovered from experimentally inoculated rhesus monkeys had up to a 250-fold-increased urease activity over that before inoculation. This was found to result from the selection of urease positive J166 clones from a heterogeneous inoculum, which was predominantly urease negative due to a 1-bp insertion in the ureA gene. These results confirm the importance of urea...

Urease activities of anaerobic bacteria that constituted predominant gut flora were examined. It was demonstrated that some strains of Eubacterium aerofaciens, E. lentum, and Peptostreptococcus products produced urease. They were the most numerous species in human feces. All strains of Bifidobacterium infantis and some strains of Bacteroides multiacidus, B. bifidum, Clostridium symbiosum, Fusob...