cardial carnitine depletion and an accompanying decrease in fatty acid oxidation may contribute to the myocardial disease associated with diphtheria. In addition, administration of carnitine was found to prolong survival of diphtheritic guinea pigs and improve ventricular function in diphtheritic dogs. The present studies document the hypothesis that the defect in myocardial carnitine, directly...

The food-borne pathogen Listeria monocytogenes grows actively under high-salt conditions by accumulating compatible solutes such as glycine betaine and carnitine from the medium. We report here that the dominant transport system for glycine betaine uptake, the Gbu porter, may act as a secondary uptake system for carnitine, with a K(m) of 4 mM for carnitine uptake and measurable uptake at carnit...

BACKGROUND Metabolic derangements in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) are likely to affect skeletal muscle contractile functions adversely. Levo-carnitine improves muscle contractile functions in healthy humans and rats and corrects metabolic derangements in T2DM. Therefore, it is likely to improve muscle contractile functions in T2DM as well. This study was designed to determine the effect of l...

We evaluated the clinical significance of serum carnitine concentrations in determining the severity of impaired myocardial fatty acid metabolism in idiopathic hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). We studied 56 asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic patients with HCM. Serum levels of free carnitine and acylcarnitine were measured by the enzymic cycling method. Myocardial scintigraphy with (123)I-labe...

Background. This study was designed to evaluate the effect of severe peripheral arterial insufficiency on carnitine concentrations and carnitine acetyltransferase and palmitoyltransferase activities in the ischemic skeletal muscles of patients with severe peripheral vascular disease. Methds and Results. Nine biopsy specimens ofischemic muscles were obtained from five patients undergoing reconst...

BACKGROUND Streptozotocin-induced diabetes (STZ-D) in rats has been associated with carnitine deficiency, bradycardia and left ventricular enlargement. AIM The purpose of this study was to determine whether oral carnitine supplementation would normalize carnitine levels and cardiac function in STZ-D rats. METHODS Wistar rats (48) were made hyperglycemic by STZ at 26 weeks of age. Same age n...

Subsequent reports from our laboratory showed that both carnitine (/3-hydroxy-y-trimethylammonium butyrate) and acetylcarnitinei increased oxygen uptake and oxidation of long chain fatty acids by heart homogenates incubated under conditions optimal for fatty acid oxidation (2, 3). Acetylcarnitine action could not be attributed simply to formation of carnitine via hydrolysis because acetylcarnit...

Carnitine concentrations were measured in plasma, haemofiltrate, dialysate and urine of patients on regular dialysis treatment and in normal controls. Patients on haemofiltration and on haemodialysis exhibited moderately decreased plasma values, whereas in eight patients on CAPD mean values did not differ from controls. Carnitine loss into the haemofiltrate was significantly lower than urinary ...