Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: EC:6.2.1.7 (BAL)
 1,977 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

In order to improve the sensitivity and the reliability of the in vitro bioassay for human luteinizing hormone, various strains of male mice at various chronological ages were sacrificed to obtained dispersed testes interstitial cell preparations. They consisted of DDN, DDY, DBA, C57, C3H, ICR, and BAL/C at 5, 7 and 9 weeks of age. The C57 Black strain, especially at 7 and 9 weeks of age, gave the most satisfactory standard dilution curve with a sensitivity of less than 12.5 microIU/tube, with a wide assayable range and with a parallelism to the sample dilution curve. Improvement of the assay is expected with the use of the C57 Black strain as the source of the cell suspension.
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PMID:A trial for the improvement of the in vitro bioassay for human luteinizing hormones. 725 72

In summary, there are remarkably few studies focused on the genetic contributions to alcohol's reinforcing values. Almost all such studies examine the two-bottle preference test. Despite the deficiencies I have raised in its interpretation, a rodent genotype's willingness to drink ethanol when water is freely available offers a reasonable aggregate estimate of alcohol's reinforcing value relative to other genotypes (Green and Grahame 2008). As indicated above, however, preference drinking studies will likely never avoid the confounding role of taste preferences and most often yield intake levels not sufficient to yield a pharmacologically significant BAL. Thus, the quest for improved measures of reinforcing value continues. Of the potential motivational factors considered by McClearn in his seminal review in this series, we can safely conclude that rodent alcohol drinking is not primarily directed at obtaining calories. The role of taste (and odor) remains a challenge. McClearn appears to have been correct that especially those genotypes that avoid alcohol are probably doing so based on preingestive sensory cues; however, postingestive consequences are also important. Cunningham's intragastric model shows the role of both preingestional and postingestional modulating factors for the best known examples, the usually nearly absolutely alcohol-avoiding DBA/2J and HAP-2 mice. Much subsequent data reinforce McClearn's earlier conclusion that C57BL/6J mice, at least, do not regulate their intake around a given self-administered dose of alcohol by adjusting their intake. This leaves us with the puzzle of why nearly all genotypes, even those directionally selectively bred for high voluntary intake for many generations, fail to self-administer intoxicating amounts of alcohol. Since McClearn's review, many ingenious assays to index alcohol's motivational effects have been used extensively, and new methods for inducing dependence have supplanted the older ones prevalent in 1968. I have tried to identify promising areas where the power of genetics could be fruitfully harvested and generally feel that we have a much more clear idea now about some important experiments remaining to be performed.
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PMID:Rodent models of genetic contributions to motivation to abuse alcohol. 2530 77