Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: EC:3.1.1.8 (cholinesterase)
 12,691 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Cocaine was the first drug to be used as a local anaesthetic. It was introduced into medicine in 1884 by Koller. Other drugs soon followed, for example, ethyl chloride spray, tropocaine, eugenol (oil of cloves) and Nupercaine. A wide range of uses for local anaesthetics soon developed and the term 'regional anaesthesia' was first used by Cushing in 1901 to describe pain relief by nerve blockade. Local anaesthetic drugs are water soluble salts of lipid soluble alkaloids. Each molecule is composed of an aromatic portion, intermediate chain and an amide portion. The portions are joined by either amide or ester linkages. Ester-linked drugs are hydrolysed in the plasma by plasma cholinesterase and their half-life varies from one to eight minutes. Amide-linked drugs are degraded by oxidative dealkylation in the liver. The half-life of these drugs varies from 1.5 to more than three hours. The addition of a vasoconstrictor, such as adrenaline, will prolong the duration of action of both the amide- and ester-linked drugs. Degradation of the amide-linked drugs depends on factors such as hepatic blood flow and liver conditions, such as cirrhosis, and congestive cardiac failure. Anaphylactic reactions are more common with ester-linked drugs than amide-linked drugs. The drugs are usually available for injection as hydrochlorides in a salt solution with small amounts of fungicides or preservatives added to give stability.
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PMID:Local anaesthesia in the operating theatre. 799 96

Organophosphate-inhibited cholinesterases may become progressively refractory to reactivation by nucleophilic compounds due to the dealkylation of an alkoxy group from the covalently bound phosphonate ester. This process is termed "aging". It has been found that "aged" cholinesterases are more resistant to protein unfolding than the non-inhibited ones. The pressure-induced denaturation of the native (non-inhibited) and "aged" tetrameric form of human plasma butyrylcholinesterase was investigated in the presence and absence of a denaturing agent (propylene carbonate). This study was undertaken to determine whether the stability of aged butyrylcholinesterase varies with the structure of the alkyl/aryl (R2) group remaining attached to the phosphorus atom of the organophosphoryl moiety. "Aged" organophosphoryl-cholinesterase conjugates were formed by reacting the enzyme with organophosphates: soman (trimethylpropylmethyl-phosphonofluoridate), sarin (isopropylmethyl-phosphonofluoridate), tabun (ethyl-N-dimethyl-phosphoramidocyanidate), DFP (diisopropyl phosphorofluoridate) and PBPDC (pyrenebutyl-phosphorodichloridate). The dual effects of hydrostatic pressure up to 3.5 kbar and propylene carbonate up to 1.2 M were investigated in 10 mM Tris.HCl (pH 7.0). Non-inhibited and aged enzymes were subjected to pressure/propylene carbonate for 12 hours at 20 degrees C. The perturbing effects of this treatment upon cholinesterase structure were analyzed after pressure release by non-denaturing electrophoresis. Pressure and propylene carbonate induced progressive inactivation of the native enzyme. The loss in activity was correlated with irreversible denaturation of the tetramer and its subsequent aggregation. Similarly, pressure and propylene carbonate induced the formation of irreversibly denatured forms of aged butyrylcholinesterase. These denatured forms are partially unfolded enzyme conformations. The native enzyme was found to be more susceptible to denaturation than aged enzymes, with the exception of the PBPDC-aged enzyme. Methyl phosphono adducts, i.e. soman or sarin-aged conjugates were found to be the most stable aged species. Phenomenological analysis of the pressure/propylene carbonate denaturation maps at half-way of the denaturation process indicated that denaturation is a multistep process. The lowest stability of tabun-aged and DFP-aged conjugates suggested that the size, the orientation and the hydrophobicity of the remaining alkyl/aryl chain (R2) of the organophosphoryl moiety play a role in determining the overall stability of aged enzymes. Molecular modelling of aged adducts shed light on steric constraints exerted by the R2 chain on the salt bridge formed between the negatively charged P-O- of the dealkylated organophosphoryl moiety and protonated His438 N epsilon.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
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PMID:Pressure and propylene carbonate denaturation of native and "aged" phosphorylated cholinesterase. 817 37

Progressive inhibition of cholinesterases by organophosphates results from phosphorylation of the active-site serine. Phosphorylated cholinesterases may undergo a dealkylation reaction of the organophosphorus moiety leading to "aged" enzyme, i.e. conversion of the inhibited enzyme into a non-reactivable form. Aging occurs rapidly when the inhibitor is soman, a powerful nerve agent. This reaction promotes formation of a salt bridge between the protonated histidine of the active site catalytic triad and a negatively charged oxygen bound to the phosphorus atom. This reaction is accompanied by enzyme conformational and stability changes. In the research of compounds which retard or prevent the dealkylation reaction of organophosphate-cholinesterase conjugates, some allosteric effectors are relatively efficient by decreasing the velocity of the "aging" process. Knowledge of the three-dimensional structure of non-inhibited, inhibited and aged cholinesterases allows to understand the intimate mechanism of irreversible enzyme inhibition. Modeling of enzyme structure in the presence of effectors is essential to find out new therapeutic means against organophosphate poisoning.
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PMID:[Aging of cholinesterase after inhibition by organophosphates]. 825 Apr 87

Necator americanus (Nematoda: Strongyloidea), a human hookworm parasite, is known to release considerable amounts of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) [Pritchard, D. I., Leggett K. V., Rogan, M. T., McKean, P. G. & Brown, A. (1991) Necator americanus secretory acetylcholinesterase and its purification from excretory/secretory products by affinity chromatography, Parasite Immunol. 13, 187-199]. The present study deals with AChE activity recovered in sequential somatic extracts, and excretory/secretory products, of the adult stage of the parasite. 97% of AChE was extractable in low-salt and high-salt detergent-free buffers, and only 3% was solubilised by a further extraction in the presence of Triton X-100. AChE in all three extracts was affected by the AChE inhibitors eserine, bis(4-allyldimethylammoniumphenyl)pentan-3-one dibromide and edrophonium chloride, but was resistant to the effects of tetramonoisopropylpyrophosphortetramide, a butyrylcholinesterase inhibitor. Sucrose density centrifugation revealed that AChE in all somatic extracts (low-salt, high-salt and detergent) resolved almost exclusively as a single peak between 6.9-7.5 S, while excretory/secretory products resolved at 8.2 S. These values are all compatible with dimers of catalytic subunits and no evidence was found for the presence of higher oligomers such as asymmetric forms. The only sample to show a shift in sedimentation following the inclusion of detergent (Triton X-100, Brij 96) in the gradient was a component of the detergent-soluble extract, indicating the existence of a minor amphiphilic form. In low-salt-soluble and high-salt-soluble extracts, AChE was solubilised as a hydrophilic globular form, probably a dimeric G2. The analysis of diisopropylfluorophosphate-labelled extracts by SDS/PAGE, and unlabelled extracts by immunoblotting using a polyvalent antiserum to N. americanus AChE, indicated that the AChE isolated in each extract was biochemically and immunologically similar. The banding patterns obtained were comparable to that seen when purified AChE was analysed by SDS/PAGE and immunoblotted. This suggests that the basic catalytic subunit has a mass of 66-70 kDa with the active site being located in a 30-kDa domain. All experimental data indicate the existence of only one AChE class in Necator homologous to AChE of class B from Caenorhabditis elegans. The solubility characteristics and globular nature of this hookworm AChE suggest that its major function is as an excretory or secretory product. This again raises the question of the true biological function of this 'non-cholinergenic' nematode secretion.
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PMID:The molecular forms of acetylcholinesterase from Necator americanus (Nematoda), a hookworm parasite of the human intestine. 830 98

In developing a research on the cholinesterase (ChE) evolution in Invertebrata, this enzyme was studied in the unsegmented marine worm Sipunculus nudus. ChE activity was solubilized through three successive steps of extraction. These fractions are noted as low-salt (LSS), detergent (DS) and high-salt soluble (HSS) and represent 27%, 68% and 5% of total activity, respectively. LSS and DS ChE were purified to homogeneity by affinity chromatography on edrophonium-Sepharose gel. Purification factors of 1700 (LSS) and 1090 (DS) were obtained. The small amount of HSS ChE prevented a similar purification and an extensive characterization. Based on SDS/PAGE and density-gradient centrifugation, both LSS and DS enzymes show a M(r) value of about 130,000 and are likely G2 globular dimers of a 67,000 subunit. Moreover, LSS ChE seems to be an amphiphilic form including a hydrophobic domain, while DS ChE is probably linked to the cell membrane by a phosphatidylinositol anchor. Both LSS and DS enzymes hydrolyze at the highest rate propionylthiocholine. However, they also show a fairly high catalytic efficiency with other thiocholine esters as substrates, thus suggesting a wide and little-specialized conformation of the active site. Based on immunological cross-reactivity trials, LSS and DS ChE from S. nudus show a reduced structural affinity with a molluscan (Murex brandaris) enzyme. HSS ChE, an acetylcholinesterase, is also solubilized by heparin, like typical vertebrate HSS asymmetric enzymes. However, it lacks fast-sedimenting forms and an enzyme-anchoring collagenous structure.
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PMID:Dimeric forms of cholinesterase in Sipunculus nudus. 834 95

The acidic amino acid residue required for the catalytic activity of rat pancreatic cholesterol esterase has been identified in this study by sequence comparison with other serine esterases and by site-directed mutagenesis experiments. The sequence comparison studies identified 3 acidic residues in homologous domains between cholesterol esterase, acetylcholinesterase, cholinesterase, and Geotrichum candida lipase that may potentially be the catalytic acidic residue in these proteins. The role of Glu78, Asp79, and Asp320 in the catalytic activity of rat cholesterol esterase was then addressed by mutagenesis and expression of the cDNA. Results showed that replacement of Glu78 or Asp79 with alanine has no effect on the ability of the cholesterol esterase to hydrolyze the artificial water-soluble substrate p-nitrophenyl butyrate. In contrast, the Asp320-->Ala320 substitution abolished the enzyme activity of the cholesterol esterase. The specific requirement of Asp320 for optimal enzyme activity was demonstrated by substitution of the aspartic acid with glutamic acid, thus retaining the charge unit at this position. The Asp320-->Glu320 substitution resulted in an enzyme that displayed normal interaction with bile salt. However, catalytic activity of this mutagenized protein was reduced by approximately 50%. These results strongly suggested that aspartic acid 320 is an important component of the catalytic triad of pancreatic cholesterol esterase. The specific requirement of aspartic acid, instead of glutamic acid, for optimal activity is different from that of other members of the serine esterase gene family.
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PMID:Aspartic acid 320 is required for optimal activity of rat pancreatic cholesterol esterase. 841 37

We analyzed acetylcholinesterase (AcChoEase; EC 3.1.1.7) activity and AcChoEase immunoreactive protein in chicken brain by using five monoclonal antibodies raised against chicken AcChoEase. Four of them specifically recognized AcChoEase catalytic subunits in Western blots and one, C-131, recognized only enzymatically active AcChoEase. We observed considerable differences in the ratio of immunoreactive protein to catalytic activity in various fractions, indicating the existence of inactive AcChoEase protein. This inactive AcChoEase component was more abundant in a low-salt-soluble extract than in a subsequent detergent-soluble extract. On the basis of the ratio between activity and immunoreactivity, we calculated that the inactive component represents about 30% of the total AcChoEase subunits in chicken brain. The immunoreactive AcChoEase protein sedimented in sucrose gradients like the active molecular forms; the G1 and G2 peaks contained inactive molecules, whereas the G4 peak appeared to contain only active AcChoEase. The bulk of inactive AcChoEase reacted with the organophosphate cholinesterase inhibitor O-ethyl S-[2-(diisopropylamino)ethyl]methylphosphonothioate (MTP) but was found to bind the active site affinity ligand N-methylacridinium poorly and was not recognized by the active-form-specific monoclonal antibody, C-131. In addition, most of this fraction is sensitive to endoglycosidase H and binds the lectin wheat germ agglutinin poorly, suggesting that it was not processed in the Golgi apparatus. From these observations, we propose that the active and inactive AcChoEase components are differently folded.
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PMID:Existence of an inactive pool of acetylcholinesterase in chicken brain. 846 Jan 61

The goal of this work was to determine what amino acids at the mouth of the active-site gorge are important for the function of human butyrylcholinesterase. Mutants D70G, Q119Y, G283D, A277W, A277H and A277W/G283D were expressed in human embryonal kidney cells and the secreted enzymes were assayed by steady-state kinetics. The result was that only one amino acid, D70 was found to be important for function. When D70 was mutated to G, the same mutation as in the naturally occurring atypical butyrylcholinesterase, the affinity for positively charged substrates and positively charged inhibitors decreased 5-30-fold. The D70G mutant had another striking abnormality in that it was virtually devoid of the phenomenon of substrate activation by excess butyrylthiocholine. Thus, though kcat was the same for wild-type and D70G mutant, being 24000 min(-1) at low butyrylthiocholine concentrations (0.01-0.1 mM), it failed to increase for the D70G mutant at 40 mM butyrylthiocholine, whereas it increased threefold for wild type. The D70G mutant was more sensitive to changes in salt concentration, its catalytic rate decreasing more than that of the wild type. The D70G mutant appeared to have a greater surface negative charge than wild type suggesting that the D70G mutant had a conformation different from that of the wild type. That D70 affects the function of butyrylcholinesterase, together with its location at the mouth of the active-site gorge, supports the hypothesis that D70 is a component of the peripheral anionic site of butyrylcholinesterase. Mutants containing aromatic amino acids at the mouth of the gorge had increased binding affinity for propidium and fasciculin, but unaltered function, suggesting that aromatic amino acids are not important to the function of the peripheral anionic site of butyrylcholinesterase.
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PMID:Asp7O in the peripheral anionic site of human butyrylcholinesterase. 863 55

Bambuterol, a biscarbamate ester prodrug of the beta 2 adrenergic agonist terbutaline, has been approved for the treatment of asthma in 28 countries. It is available in 10 and 20mg (25 and 50 mumol) tablets as the hydrochloride salt. Bambuterol is stable to presystemic elimination and is concentrated by lung tissue after absorption from the gastrointestinal tract. The prodrug is hydrolysed to terbutaline primarily by butyrylcholinesterase, and lung tissue is capable of this metabolic pathway. It is also oxidatively metabolised to products which can be hydrolysed to terbutaline. Peak terbutaline plasma concentrations occur 3.9 to 6.8 hours after bambuterol ingestion, and the peak: trough terbutaline concentration ratio is lower than that after ingestion of terbutaline. Older patients have a greater area under the plasma concentration-time curve for terbutaline over a dose interval at steady-state. Whether genetic variations in the expression of butyrylcholinesterase alter therapeutic response remains to be determined. The efficacy of bambuterol has been demonstrated to last for 24 hours after ingestion; once-daily administration in the evening is recommended. Maximum therapeutic benefit requires more than 1 week of treatment. Except for the suppression of plasma butyrylcholinesterase, the adverse effect profile of bambuterol is essentially that of a beta 2 agonist and is best correlated with circulating terbutaline concentration in plasma. Plasma butyrylcholinesterase activity returns to control values approximately 2 weeks after discontinuation of treatment with bambuterol. This new drug provides oral beta 2 agonist therapy in a more convenient form than was available previously, and may have a better therapeutic: toxic ratio than terbutaline.
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PMID:Clinical pharmacokinetics of bambuterol. 889 42

In vertebrate neuromuscular junctions, the postsynaptic specializations include the accumulation of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) at the synaptic basal lamina and the muscle fiber. Several lines of evidence indicate that the presynaptic motor neuron is able to synthesize and secrete AChE at the neuromuscular junctions. By using anti-AChE catalytic subunit, anti-butyrylcholinesterase (BuChE) catalytic subunit, and anti-AChE collagenous tail monoclonal antibodies, we demonstrated that the motor neurons of chick spinal cord expressed AChE in vivo and the predominant AChE was the globular form of the enzyme. Neither asymmetric AChE nor BuChE was detected in the motor neurons. The molecular mass of AChE catalytic subunit in the motor neuron was approximately 105 kDa, which was similar to that of the globular enzyme from low-salt extracts of muscle; both of them were approximately 5 kDa smaller than the asymmetric AChE from high-salt extracts of muscle. The level of AChE expression in the motor neurons decreased, as found by immunochemical and enzymatic analysis, during the different stages of the chick's development and after nerve lesion. Thus, the AChE activity at the neuromuscular junctions that is contributed by the presynaptic motor neurons is primarily the globular, not the asymmetric, form of the enzyme, and these contributions decreased toward maturity and after denervation.
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PMID:A globular, not asymmetric, form of acetylcholinesterase is expressed in chick motor neurons: down-regulation toward maturity and after denervation. 900 32


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