Lactic acid bacteria play a pivotal role in many food fermentations and sometimes represent a health threat due to the ability of some strains to produce biogenic amines that accumulate in foods and cause trouble following ingestion. These strains carry specific enzymatic systems catalyzing the uptake of amino acid precursors (e.g., ornithine and lysine), the decarboxylation inside the cell, an...

BACKGROUND Knowing the levels of polyamines (putrescine, spermidine, and spermine) in different foods is of interest due to the association of these bioactive nutrients to health and diseases. There is a lack of relevant information on their contents in foods. OBJECTIVE To develop a food polyamine database from published data by which polyamine intake and food contribution to this intake can ...

25 Lactococcus lactis is a prokaryotic microorganism with great importance as a starter 26 culture and has become the model species among the lactic acid bacteria. The long and 27 safe history of use of L. lactis in dairy fermentations has resulted in the classification of 28 this species as GRAS (General Regarded As Safe) or QPS (Qualified Presumption of 29 Safety). However, our group has iden...

The naturally occurring polyamines, putrescine, spermidine and spermine, have been implicated in many growth processes and in differentiation (Cohen, 1971; Bachrach, 1973; Russell & Durie, 1978). Their concentrations and the activity of their biosynthetic enzymes increase significantly in proliferating cells (Tabor & Tabor, 1976; Janne & Raina, 1968) and neoplastic tissues (Bachrach, 1978; Russ...

BACKGROUND We have previously reported the polyamine uptake kinetics in various prostate and non-prostate cancer cell lines, concluding that the prostate cancer cell lines took up and accumulated polyamines at higher levels than non-prostate cell lines, with a view to their use as PET agents. The objective of the present study was to assess their in vivo accumulation in a rat prostate tumor mod...

Lactococcus lactis is a prokaryotic microorganism with great importance as a culture starter and has become the model species among the lactic acid bacteria. The long and safe history of use of L. lactis in dairy fermentations has resulted in the classification of this species as GRAS (General Regarded As Safe) or QPS (Qualified Presumption of Safety). However, our group has identified several ...

In extracts from the youngest leaves of Avena sativa, Hordeum vulgare, Zea Mays, Pisum sativum, Phaseolus vulgaris, Lactuca sativa, and four pyrrolizidine alkaloid-bearing species of Heliotropium, the activities of ornithine decarboxylase, close to V(max), ranged between traces and 1.5 nanomoles per hour per gram fresh weight when based on putrescine formed during incubation with labeled ornith...

Adjustment of polyamine contents in Escherichia coli was studied with strains of Escherichia coli producing normal (DR112) and excessive amounts of ornithine decarboxylase [DR112(pODC)] or S-adenosylmethionine decarboxylase [DR112(pSAMDC)]. Although DR112(pODC) produced approximately 70 times more ornithine decarboxylase than DR112 did, the amounts of polyamines in the cells of both strains did...

Macrophage-like RAW 264 and H35 hepatoma cells grown under serum-free conditions exported putrescine and an unidentified diamine into the culture medium. Unlike putrescine, the unknown compound could be detected only extracellularly. Analyses of dansylated polyamine standards and mass spectroscopy confirmed that the unknown compound was cadaverine (1,5-diaminopentane). The cells were free of my...

Treatment of cultured L1210 cells with the putrescine analogue, 2,5-diamino-3-hexyne, at 0.5 nM resulted in the rapid (1-2 h) appearance of numerous cytoplasmic vacuoles which were highly visible by light microscopy. Ultrastructural examination revealed that the vacuoles contained numerous membrane vesicles and electron-dense structures resembling endosomal elements. Other cellular organelles w...