Previous studies have shown that a Na+-dependent transport system is responsible for the transplacental transfer of the vitamins pantothenate and biotin and the essential metabolite lipoate. We now report the isolation of a rat placental cDNA encoding a transport protein responsible for this function. The cloned cDNA, when expressed in HeLa cells, induces Na+-dependent pantothenate and biotin t...

Deferiprone was shown to reverse iron deposition in Friedreich's ataxia. This multi-center, unblinded, single-arm pilot study evaluated safety and efficacy of deferiprone for reducing cerebral iron accumulation in neurodegeneration with brain iron accumulation. Four patients with genetically-confirmed pantothenate kinase-associated neurodegeneration, and 2 with parkinsonism and focal dystonia, ...

Following implant of cotton thread-carrying 3-methyl-cholanthrene into the pancreas tissue of 90 C57BL/6 and 60 BALB/c mice, 13 developed ductal adenocarcinomas. Two of these tumors, both of C57BL/6 origin (Panc 02 and 03), were established in serial s.c. transplant. Panc 02 was treated with 37 different anticancer drugs representing all of the chemical and functional classes of clinically usef...

For improved production of coenzyme A (CoA), a mutant of Brevibacterium ammoniagenes IFO127071 resistant to oxypantetheine, the corresponding oxygen analog of pantetheine, was obtained. In the mutant, activity of pantothenate kinase (EC 2.7.1.33), the first-step enzyme for the biosynthesis of CoA from pantothenic acid, l-cysteine, and ATP, was about threefold higher than that in the parent stra...

Pantothenic acid, a precursor of the crucial enzyme cofactor coenzyme A, is one of a relatively few nutrients for which the intraerythrocytic parasite has an absolute and acute requirement from the external medium. In some organisms the provitamin pantothenol can serve as a source of pantothenic acid; however, this was not the case for the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum. Instead, ...

Several methods for the assay of pantothenic acid have been reported in the literature. They have been based on the growth response of yeast (l), bacteria (2, 3), and chicks (4, 5) to the vitamin. The relative merits of these methods have been discussed in an earlier paper (3). In a previous publication (6) it was shown that pantothenic acid is one of the growth factors required by Proteus morg...

Knowledge concerning the function of paminobenzoate in biological systems has been derived largely by the use of specificcompetitive inhibitors. Thus, the reversal of either sulfanilamide or 2-chloro4-aminobenzoate inhibition by methionine and other amino acids (Lampen et al., 1946; King et al., 1948; Strandskov, 1947; Winkler and DeHaan, 1948), by pteroylglutamic acid (Nimmo-Smith et al., 1948...

The stiffness of cancer cells is attributable to intermediate filaments such as keratin. Perinuclear reorganization via phosphorylation of specific serine residue in keratin is implicated in the deformability of metastatic cancer cells including the human pancreatic carcinoma cell line (PANC-1). 12-O-Tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate (TPA) is a potent tumor promoter and protein kinase C (PKC) act...

Coenzyme A (CoA) is an essential universal cofactor for all prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. In nearly all non-photosynthetic cells, CoA biosynthesis depends on the uptake and phosphorylation of vitamin B5 (pantothenic acid or pantothenate). Recently, putative pantothenate transporter (PAT) and pantothenate kinases (PanKs) were functionally characterized in P. yoelii. PAT and PanKs were shown ...