Ketoconazole is an imidazole oral antifungal agent with a broad spectrum of activity. Ketoconazole has been reported to cause liver damage, but the mechanism is unknown. However, ketoconazole and a related rug, miconazole, have been shown to have inhibitory effects on oxidative phosphorylation in fungi. Fluconazole, another orally administered antifungal azole, has also been reported to cause l...

1,2,4-butanetriol (BT) is an important bulk chemical mainly used for producing the superior energetic plasticizer (1,2,4-butanetriol trinitrate) in propellant and explosive formulations. BT is commercially produced by chemical synthesis from petroleum-based feedstocks; until recently a costly biosynthetic route from xylose or arabinose was reported. Here we designed a novel biosynthetic pathway...

The amino acid sequence of porcine heart mitochondrial malate dehydrogenase (mMDH; L-malate: NAD+ oxidoreductase, EC 1.1.1.37) has been compared with the sequences of six different lactate dehydrogenases (LDH; L-lactate: NAD+ oxidoreductase, EC 1.1.1.27) and with the "x-ray" sequence of cytoplasmic malate dehydrogenase (sMDH). The main points are that (i) all three enzymes are homologous; (ii) ...

In Clostridium thermocellum, a thermophilic anaerobic bacterium able to rapidly ferment cellulose to ethanol, pyruvate kinase (EC 2.7.1.40) is absent based on both the genome sequence and enzymatic assays. Instead, a new pathway converting phosphoenolpyruvate to pyruvate via a three-step pathway involving phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase, NADH-linked malate dehydrogenase, and NADP-dependent ma...

Selenium administration resulted in a marked decrease in the activity levels of the liver succinate dehydrogenase, malate dehydrogenase, and lactate dehydrogenase while pyruvate dehydrogenase increased significantly (P<0.001) in the wistar rat. The degree of decrease of these enzymes was significantly less (P<0.001) when rats were treated with curcumin, a natural constituent Curcuma longa. Curc...