Acetic acid-induced writhing, hot-plate, carrageenan-induced pleurisy, formalin-induced pain, croton oil-induced ear edema, vascular permeability tests and phospholipase A2 activity assay were used to study the analgesic and/or antiinflammatory activity of the hydromethanolic fraction of ethanolic extract from Spiranthera odoratissima A. St.-Hil., Rutaceae, leaves (HMF) and its subfraction (sub...

We designed the present study to clarify whether the intracellular pH change by ammonium chloride influences endothelium-dependent relaxation in thoracic aorta of 9-week-old Sprague-Dawley rats. Intracellular alkalinization with 3 mmol/L ammonium chloride, which did not affect resting vascular tone, attenuated acetylcholine-induced relaxation but not nitroglycerin vasodilation. Acetylcholine re...

Cerebellar long-term depression (LTD) may be reliably induced in the cultured Purkinje neuron when glutamate pulses and Purkinje neuron depolarization are applied together 6 times. When the number of these conjunctive stimuli was reduced to 2, a short-term depression (STD) lasting 20-40 min was induced in 4/12 cells. The enzyme phospholipase A2 cleaves membrane phospholipids causing liberation ...

Mitochondrial damage is one of the prominent features of cell injury during oxidative stress and altered mitochondrial lipids may contribute to this damage. Lipid changes were observed when liver mitochondria were exposed to superoxide generating systems. Phosphatidylcholine and phosphatidylethanolamine contents were decreased with simultaneous formation of lysophospholipids when exposed to sup...

The Streptoverticillium sp. Z1 is an actinomycete isolated from the soil under Cerrado vegetation, the extract of this strain was investigated in nociceptive and inflammatory models. The Streptoverticillium extract (ExS) 50 and 100 mg/kg (s.c.) produced a significant inhibition of acetic acid-induced abdominal writhings thereby demonstrating an anti-nociceptive effect. In the tail flick test th...

An improved radiochemical method is presented for the selective determination of phospholipase A2 activity in human serum and ascites, using only commercially available reagents. The method can be applied to large quantities of samples. As substrate we used 1,2-dipalmitoyl-sn-glycero(3)phosphorylcholine and phosphatidylcholine containing tritiated palmitic acid in position 2 (1-palmitoyl,2-[9,1...

Bombyx mori densovirus (BmDNV-1), on the basis of the previously reported genome sequence, constitutes by itself a separate genus (Iteravirus) within the Densovirinae subfamily of parvoviruses. Inconsistencies in the genome organization, however, necessitated its reassessment. The genome sequence of new clones was determined and resulted in a completely different genome organization. The correc...

Phospholipid methylation in murine T lymphocytes but not B cells was stimulated by mitogenic lectins such as concanavalin A and phytohemagglutinin, and the methylation was then returned to the control level by the concomitant activation of phospholipase A2. A parallelism between dose-response curves of concanavalin A for phospholipid methylation and thymidine incorporation was found. Inhibition...

We tested the hypothesis that the role of diacylglycerol (DAG) in sperm acrosomal exocytosis is related to the activation of phospholipase A2, and that this effect is not mediated via protein kinase C. Treatment of [14C]arachidonic acid-labelled ram spermatozoa with Ca2l and the ionophore A23187 stimulated both liberation of arachidonic acid and acrosomal exocytosis. No changes in [14C]DAG or [...

Human milk fat globules require colipase to be hydrolyzed by pancreatic lipase in the presence of bile salts. This is contrary to a recent report in this Journal (J. Clin. Invest. 67: 1748-1752.) according to which inhibition of lipase by bile salt could be overcome by the addition of colipase or phospholipase A2. This latter finding is shown to be due to contamination of commercially available...