Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0262471 (ENT)
 5,307 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Optimal growth conditions have been established for production of heat-labile enterotoxin (LT) by both porcine and human strains of enterotoxigenic (ENT(+)) Escherichia coli. There were no unusual growth factor requirements, and some strains produced fairly high levels of LT in a basal salts medium containing 0.5% glucose if the pH was carefully controlled. Several amino acids markedly stimulated LT synthesis when added to the basal salts-glucose medium. Methionine and lysine were the most stimulatory for both human and porcine strains. Either aspartic acid or glutamic acid further enhanced LT synthesis in the presence of methionine and lysine, with aspartic acid being more stimulatory for porcine strains and glutamic acid more stimulatory for human strains. There were no apparent vitamin requirements and no unusual cations needed for toxin synthesis except that Fe(3+) was slightly stimulatory for porcine strains. The stimulation by Fe(3+) was observed only in the presence of the three amino acids, suggesting that the effect was indirect rather than on toxin synthesis. The carbon source also influenced the yield of LT. Glucose supported maximal synthesis, but other carbon sources which exhibit a high degree of catabolite repression also supported high levels of synthesis. Little or no LT was released below pH 7.0; therefore, because the pH drops during growth from 7.5 to 6.8, even in highly buffered media, it was necessary to adjust the pH to 8.0 to effect complete release of cell-associated toxin. The defined medium containing three amino acids reduced the amount of UV-absorbing material in culture supernatants about fivefold and increased LT activity for various strains from two- to fivefold over a complex Casamino Acids-yeast extract medium. Conditions found to be optimal for synthesis of LT were inhibitory for the heat-stable enterotoxin.
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PMID:Nutritional requirements for synthesis of heat-labile enterotoxin by enterotoxigenic strains of Escherichia coli. 3

Middle ear implants overcome some of the common problems of conventional hearing aid technology, such as feedback, signal distortion, ear canal occlusion and associated issues. The Otologics MET Carina, Boulder, CO, USA, is a fully implantable hearing prosthesis designed to address the amplification needs of adults (> 18 years of age), with moderate to severe sensorineural hearing loss and normal middle ears, providing a mechanical direct stimulation of middle ear ossicles. Recently, it has been successfully used also in patients with conductive hearing loss. In the present report, personal surgical and clinical experience with the fully implantable Carina is described in 5 adults with moderate to severe sensorineural hearing loss, operated upon between November 2007 and May 2008 in the ENT Unit, University of Pisa. Mean follow-up was 10.2 months of device use (range 7-13). Surgery was performed under general anaesthesia, in approximately 3 hours, with no surgical complications in any of the patients. In these 5 cases, no significant post-operative variation was observed in hearing thresholds, either for air or bone conduction, indicating absence of surgical damage to the cochlea. All patients showed improvements in hearing thresholds, in free field and in speech perception abilities, with the device functioning, moreover, they reported subjective benefits. With regard to post-operative adverse effects, no cases of extrusion of the device, device failure, loss of external communication or increased charging times were observed. Problems of feedback noise occurred, which were resolved with minor fitting adjustments in 4 cases, while a second operation was required to change the microphone position in the other patient. The present results, in agreement with those reported in the literature, confirm that the Otologics MET Carina is viable treatment for moderate to severe sensorineural hearing loss and, in selected cases, may represent an alternative to conventional hearing aids.
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PMID:Fully implantable Otologics MET Carina device for the treatment of sensorineural hearing loss. Preliminary surgical and clinical results. 2011 17