Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: EC:6.3.4.6 (urease)
 7,490 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

The measurement of urinary orotic acid excretion is an important test for establishing a diagnosis of hereditary orotic aciduria, a genetic defect of pyrimidine biosynthesis. Measurement of secondary urinary orotic acid elevation is also an important clinical test for the differential diagnosis of hyperammonemia due to some of the primary disorders of the urea cycle including ornithine transcarbamylase (OTC) deficiency, and the hyperornithinemia-hyperammonemia-homocitrullinemia (HHH) syndrome. Low levels of orotic acid are observed in carbamylphosphate synthetase (CPS) defects. This method utilizes a stable-isotope labeled internal standard (1, 3-(15)N-orotic acid), which is added to the standards, controls, and patient samples prior to extraction. Interference from urea is removed by incubation of samples with urease and the orotic acid is derivatized by trimethylsilylation. Quantitation is made against an eight-point standard curve using specific selected ions from both the labeled and unlabeled orotic acid.
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PMID:Quantitation of orotic acid in urine using isotope dilution-selected ion gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. 2007 96

Ornithine, ammonia and homocitrulline are the major metabolites accumulating in hyperornithinemia-hyperammonemia-homocitrullinuria syndrome, a genetic disorder characterized by neurological regression whose pathogenesis is still not understood. The present work investigated the in vivo effects of intracerebroventricular administration of ornithine and homocitrulline in the presence or absence of hyperammonemia induced by intraperitoneal urease treatment on a large spectrum of oxidative stress parameters in cerebral cortex from young rats in order to better understand the role of these metabolites on brain damage. Ornithine increased thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances (TBA-RS) levels and carbonyl formation and decreased total antioxidant status (TAS) levels. We also observed that the combination of hyperammonemia with ornithine resulted in significant decreases of sulfhydryl levels, reduced glutathione (GSH) concentrations and the activities of catalase (CAT) and glutathione peroxidase (GPx), highlighting a synergistic effect of ornithine and ammonia. Furthermore, homocitrulline caused increases of TBA-RS values and carbonyl formation, as well as decreases of GSH concentrations and GPx activity. Hcit with hyperammonemia (urease treatment) decreased TAS and CAT activity. We also showed that urease treatment per se was able to enhance TBA-RS levels. Finally, nitric oxide production was not altered by Orn and Hcit alone or in combination with hyperammonemia. Our data indicate that the major metabolites accumulating in hyperornithinemia-hyperammonemia-homocitrullinuria syndrome provoke lipid and protein oxidative damage and a reduction of the antioxidant defenses in the brain. Therefore, it is presumed that oxidative stress may represent a relevant pathomechanism involved in the brain damage found in patients affected by this disease.
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PMID:Impairment of brain redox homeostasis caused by the major metabolites accumulating in hyperornithinemia-hyperammonemia-homocitrullinuria syndrome in vivo. 2279 68