Acetaldehyde, a toxic byproduct of alcohol (i.e., ethanol) metabolism, has long been suspected of causing at least some of the central nervous system actions of ethanol. However, the data to support such a hypothesis have been difficult to obtain. One roadblock is the very low blood levels of acetaldehyde following ethanol intake and the finding that even elevated acetaldehyde levels in the blo...

The importance of carboxyl groups near the active site zinc for the catalytic function of alcohol dehydrogenase I from Saccharomyces cerevisiae was examined by directed mutagenesis and steady state kinetics. Asp-49 was changed to asparagine and Glu-68 to glutamine (residue numbering as for horse liver enzyme). The catalytic efficiencies (V/Km) for ethanol oxidation and acetaldehyde reduction we...

Detoxification of ethanol can contribute to oxidative cellular and DNA damage and, thereby, to carcinogenesis. The potential relevance of this to breast carcinogenesis is suggested by evidence that alcohol consumption is a risk factor for breast cancer. It is, however, not known whether ethanol can be metabolized in breast parenchyma. The goal of this study was to determine whether class I and/...

Lundsgaard solved the problem of identifying the organ in which the first stage of the metabolism of ethanol takes place (1). He clearly demonstrated that in cats the liver accounts for 90 per cent or more of the ethanol removed from the circulating blood. He also observed that an organic acid is produced in the perfused liver during alcohol metabolism. The question of the pathway of ethanol me...

Detoxification of ethanol can contribute to oxidative cellular and DNA damage and, thereby, to carcinogenesis. The potential relevance of this to breast carcinogenesis is suggested by evidence that alcohol consumption is a risk factor for breast cancer. It is, however, not known whether ethanol can be metabolized in breast parenchyma. The goal of this study was to determine whether class I and/...

The metabolism of acetate at concentrations of 1, 2.5, 5 and 10 mM was investigated in freshly isolated hepatocytes from 48 hr fasted, female rats in the absence and presence of 10 mM ethanol. The maximal capacity for acetate metabolism was 0.85 mumol/(10(8) cells.min). Ethanol caused a 20% decrease in the apparent Vmax for acetate metabolism and an increase in the apparent Km for acetate from ...

Feeding of ethanol in a liquid diet to male Wistar rats caused decreases in the hepatic cytosolic and mitochondrial [NAD+]/[NADH] ratios. This redox-state change was attenuated after 16 days of feeding ethanol as 36% of the total energy intake. Supplementation of the ethanol-containing liquid diet with Methylene Blue largely prevented the ethanol-induced redox state changes, but did not signifi...

In view of a possible use as anode materials in acidic direct alcohol fuel cells, the electro-catalytic activity of Pt-Ni and Pt-M-Ni (M = Ru, Sn) catalysts for methanol and ethanol oxidation has been widely investigated. An overview of literature data regarding the effect of the addition of Ni to Pt and Pt-M on the methanol and ethanol oxidation activity in acid environment of the resulting bi...

Identifying and quantifying electrocatalytic-reaction-generated solution species, be they reaction intermediates or products, are highly desirable in terms of understanding the associated reaction mechanisms. We report herein a straightforward implementation of in situ solution electrochemical (13)C NMR spectroscopy for the first time that enables in situ studies of reactions on commercial fuel...

In the present work several Pt-based anode catalysts supported on carbon XC-72R were prepared with a novel method and characterized by means of XRD, TEM and XPS analysis. It was found that all these catalysts are consisted of uniform nanosized particles with sharp distribution and Pt lattice parameter decreases with the addition of Ru or Pd and increases with the addition of Sn or W. Cyclic vol...