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Biomedical subjects

J M Burnell

Publications and source records attributed to J M Burnell.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

Surface properties of membrane systems: interaction of ketamine with monomolecular films of ganliosides and mitochondrial lipids.

Ketamine solutions did not form a film (pi=0) but had an appreciable surface potential (delta V=500 mv), indicating a significant array of +/- oriented charge dipoles at the air-water interface, as opposed to calcium chloride solutions whose delta V was zero. The delta V values of ganglioside films spread on the aqueous phase varied in the order water less than sodium chloride less than calcium chloride less than ketamine hydrochloride. At equivalent concentrations, calcium chloride was 500 times as effective as sodium chloride, and ketamine at the clinical concentrations of 10-20 microgram/ml (36-72 micrometer) was 6000 times as effective as calcium chloride in raising the surface potential of gangliosides; the delta V effect with mitochondrial lipid was in the reverse order; water less than sodium chloride = ketamine hydrochloride less than calcium chloride. This calcium-ketamine inversion indicates a unique specificity of ketamine for gangliosides. Since ketamine acts on the brain and did not affect mitochondrial respiration, the surface potential data suggest that part of the mechanism of action of ketamine could be its interaction with synaptic surfaces and, specifically, with the sialic acid of gangliosides and/or glycoproteins present on the synaptic membrane surface.

Absorption

The relationship of fatty acid composition and surface activity of lung extracts.

Male weanling rats were fed fat-free diets supplemented with 4% (w/w) safflower oil (control) or 4% tripalmitin (essential fatty acid (EFA) deficient) for 14 weeks. Whereas the amount of lecithin in lung lavage material remained unchanged, lung lavage lecithin from EFA-deficient rats contained significantly less palmitic acid (61.4 +/- 2.0% vs. 77.4 +/- 5.8%, P less than 0.01) than that from controls. Surface tension vs. area hysteresis loops were obtained for total lipid extracts (TLE) of lung lavage fluid, intra- and extra-cellular lipoprotein fractions (IBI and IBE) and lipid extracts of those lipoprotein fractions (LBI and LBE). A significant increase in minimal surface tension (gammamin) was found for all samples obtained from EFA-deficient rats as compared to controls. Refeeding of diets containing safflower oil for 7-14 days reversed these changes. Air pressure-volume curves on degassed, excised lungs indicated that greater pressure is required to maintain a given lung volume in EFA-deficient rats. These results support the hypothesis that the fatty acid composition of pulmonary surfactant lecithins is a major determinant of the surface activity of lung extracts.

Animals

Muscle buffer values.

The in vitro skeletal and cardiac muscle buffer values have been determined for normal and potassium-depleted dogs. Depletion produced a statistically significant decrease in buffer value for both skeletal 66 vs. 61 sl, and cardiac muscle, 64 vs. 55 sl. The decreased cardiac muscle buffer value was obtained despite no statistically significant loss of cardiac muscle potassium.

Animals

The effects of crystal size distributions on the crystallinity analysis of bone mineral.

The mechanisms by which crystal size distributions affect the usual method of quantities X-ray diffraction analysis of bone mineral have been determined on synthetic crystals. It was observed that each component of a crystal-size distribution diffracts independently. This independence causes systematic nonlinear behavior in the plot of integrated intensity vs. broadening parameter curves. The nonlinearity resulted in an overestimation of the amount of nondiffracting material present in bone mineral. Because crystal size distributions may vary for different crystallographic directions, it is strongly suggested that the usual practice of adding the c-axis and a-axis integrated intensities to estimate the crystallinity of the sample be discontinued. Methods of understanding the crystal size distribution function in bone mineral are discussed and evaluated.

Bone and Bones

Role of calcium in bone maturation arrest after thyroparathyroidectomy in the rat.

Thyroparathyroidectomy in the rat results in decreased plasma calcium and magnesium and increased phosphorus. The associated bone changes are decreased calcium, hydroxyproline, carbonate, and wholebone density. Bone magnesium, sodium, mineral density, and percent crystallinity are increased. The delayed matrix formation and mineralization previously identified by histologic techniques are herein characterized by direct measurement as arrest of the normal increase of hydroxyproline/matrix and percent mineral. The bone mineral present is of high density and x-ray-diffraction crystallinity, suggesting a decrease in the mineralization front high in the amorphous phase and/or small nondiffracting crystalloids. The chemical studies reveal that in the absence of available Ca, Mg and Na are substituted, and CO3 is decreased. The restoration of these plasma and bone abnormalities to normal by a diet high in CaCO3 adds further emphasis to the essential role of Ca in bone cell function.

Animals

Evaluation in dogs of cross-circulation in the treatment of acute hepatic necrosis induced by yellow phosphorus.

The efficacy of cross-circulation in the treatment of acute liver failure has been evaluated in dogs. Four of 5 dogs administered a dose of yellow phosphorus that is lethal 90% of the time survived after treatment by cross-circulation of whole blood for between 1 and 8 hr with a normal dog. In 2 normal unmatched dogs plasma cross-circulations were performed over a period of 31 days without any clinical or laboratory manifestation of hypersensitivity except for lymphocytotoxic antibody titer rise. The results suggest that whole blood cross-circulation is effective and imply that a single donor could be utilized for prolonged periods of plasma cross-circulation with avoidance of immunological consequences of whole blood exchange.

Acute Disease