While the cholinesterase-inhibiting N-methyl carbamate pesticides have been widely used, there are few studies evaluating direct functional and biochemical consequences of exposure. In the present study of the acute toxicity of seven N-methyl carbamate pesticides, we evaluated the dose-response profiles of cholinesterase (ChE) inhibition in brain and erythrocytes (RBCs) as well as motor activit...

Cholinesterase inhibitors are the only approved drug treatment for patients with mild to moderately severe Alzheimer's disease. Interestingly, the clinical potency of these drugs does not correlate well with their activity as cholinesterase inhibitors, nor is their action as short lived as would be expected from purely symptomatic treatment. A few cholinesterase inhibitors, including galantamin...

BACKGROUND The muscle-relaxing effects of succinylcholine are terminated via hydrolysis by plasma cholinesterase. There are multiple genetic variants of this enzyme and clinical circumstances that might influence the activity of plasma cholinesterase and eventually lead to prolonged neuromuscular blockade following succinylcholine application. CASE REPORT Here, we report a parturient woman wi...

The protein family known as CLAMS (cholinesterase-like adhesion molecules) forms a novel class of heterophilic cell adhesion proteins. Family members are found through a wide range of metazoans and play a role during the development of multiple tissues. The majority of members of this family are transmembrane proteins with an extracellular domain that is conserved with cholinesterases including...

Diisopropyl fluorophosphate (DFP) is a highly specific inactivator of e&erases, such as cholinesterase and chymotrypsin (2), and combines irreversibly with these enzymes (3,4). In a previous report from this laboratory (5) we have shown that, when the reaction product of DFP and chymotrypsin, namely, diisopropylphosphoryl chymotrypsin, is partially hydrolyzed, serine phosphoric acid may be obta...

S EVERAL SUGGESTIONS have been made to explain the parallelism between serum cholinesterase and serum albuniin levels in chronic liver disease-first recognized by Faber (i), and since, by many othersand the moderate fall in serum cholinesterase found to occur ill normal persons after the infusion of albumin (2). Kunkel and Ward (3) suggested that a normal serum albumin level was needed for the ...

Pancuronium causes a powerful and highly selective inhibition of human serum cholinesterase in vitro. The inhibition was studied in serum from 14 individuals of both sexes (5-60 years of age) with normal reactions to suxamethonium. Pancuronium, in a concentration of 2.3 x 10(-7) M, caused a 50% inhibition of the enzymatic hydrolysis of acetylcholine, when this substrate was present in a concen...

Chlorpyrifos, an organophosphorus insecticide, has been used to control termites since regulatory measures against the use of chlordanes were taken in September, 1986. We developed an improved gas chromatographic (GC) method for the assay of 3,5,6-trichloro-2-pyridinol (TCP) in the urine to use in the biological monitoring of exposure to chlorpyrifos. Urinary TCP was separated and determined ac...

CONTEXT Cholinesterase (ChE) specific activity is the ratio of ChE activity to ChE mass and, as a biomarker of exposure to cholinesterase inhibitors, has a potential advantage over simple ChE activity. OBJECTIVE To examine the association of several potential correlates (serum arylesterase/paraoxonase activity, serum albumin, sex, age, month of blood collection, and smoking) with plasma ChE s...