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Showing 2 results for Afsharnezhad
Sima Afsharnezhad, Anahita Masoomi, Mohammad Mohammadi, Marzieh Lotfi, Shadi Shohodi Far,
Volume 1, Issue 1 (12-2010)
Abstract
Evaluation of Liver Enzymes’ Level in Blood Serum of Crystal Addicts
Introduction: Crystal or dimetamphetamine is one of the harmful substances which are imported to Iran in the last few years. Crystal is made of pure heroin. Its harmful effects are more than heroin. Addiction to crystal can produce psychological and organ damage. In order to find out which part of body could be affected, examination of enzymes is useful. Liver is one of the organs which can be infected by drug abuse. Liver function test can be used to show these harmful effects. The aim of the present study is to exanimate of the effects of crystal abuse on liver enzymes such as Aspartat transaminase, Alanine transaminase and Alkaline phosphatase in crystal abusers.
Materials & Methods: The current study is a case-control and cross-sectional study on 105 crystal addicted as case group who had referred to addiction treatment center for the first time and 100 healthy people as control group. The activity of enzymes was measured by callorimetery-spectrophotometry method. Results were analyzed by T-test exam and SPSS-16 software.
Results: results show that using crystal increases the level of AST, ALT and ALP and there is a significant relationship between crystal abuse and the level of ALP (p=0.027). In addition, there is a significant relationship between duration of crystal use and the level of ALP (p<0.05).
Conclusion: comparing with AST and ALT levels, ALP level is more affected by crystal abuse.
M. Afsharnezhad , S.s. Shahangian , M. Salehi , R. Sariri,
Volume 10, Issue 4 (Fall 2019)
Abstract
The use of enzymes in organic solvents represents an important area of industrial and biotechnological development. However, organic solvents often cause protein denaturation, thereby reducing the activity and stability of enzymes. Use of stabilizing additives, protein engineering and chemical modification of enzymes are common strategies to overcome this problem. In this study, a cysteine protease from the latex of Ficus johannis was purified and the activity and stability of the protease were investigated in the presence of different organic solvents. The effect of trehalose, sorbitol, and sucrose on the enzyme activity was also studied in the presence of organic solvents. The results showed that the enzyme activity was elevated in the presence of low concentrations of organic solvents increased, while it was decreased with increasing concentration of organic solvents. However, the enzyme still retained 60% of its activity at 30% organic solvent concentration. The enzyme was considerably stable in the presence of organic solvents, maintaining almost 90% of its stability in the presence of 50% of all solvents. As stabilizing additives, sugars enhanced the catalytic activity and stability of the enzyme, and trehalose was the most effective sugar. The easy purification procedure and considerable activity and stability of the protease in the presence of organic solvents could suggest this enzyme as a good candidate for peptide synthesis industry.
