Gadolinium is a chemical element; it has symbol Gd and atomic number 64. Gadolinium is a silvery-white metal when oxidation is removed. It is a malleable and ductile rare-earth element. Gadolinium reacts with atmospheric oxygen or moisture slowly to form a black coating. Gadolinium below its Curie point of 20 °C (68 °F) is ferromagnetic, with an attraction to a magnetic field higher than that of nickel. Above this temperature it is the most paramagnetic element. It is found in nature only in an oxidized form. When separated, it usually has impurities of the other rare earths because of their similar chemical properties.
Lactase is an enzyme produced by many organisms and is essential to the complete digestion of whole milk. It breaks down the sugar lactose into its component parts, galactose and glucose. Lactase is found in the brush border of the small intestine of humans and other mammals. People deficient in lactase or lacking functional lactase may experience the symptoms of lactose intolerance after consuming milk products. Microbial β-galactosidase can be purchased as a food supplement and is added to milk to produce "lactose-free" milk products.
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a medical imaging technique used in radiology to form pictures of the anatomy and the physiological processes inside the body. MRI scanners use strong magnetic fields, magnetic field gradients, and radio waves to generate images of the organs in the body. MRI does not involve X-rays or the use of ionizing radiation, which distinguishes it from computed tomography (CT) and positron emission tomography (PET) scans. MRI is a medical application of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) which can also be used for imaging in other NMR applications, such as NMR spectroscopy.
β-Galactosidase is a glycoside hydrolase enzyme that catalyzes hydrolysis of terminal non-reducing β-D-galactose residues in β-D-galactosides.
Mannans are polymers containing the sugar mannose as a principal component. They are a type of polysaccharide found in hemicellulose, a major source of biomass found in higher plants such as softwoods. These polymers also typically contain two other sugars, galactose and glucose. They are often branched.
Tryptophan synthase or tryptophan synthetase is an enzyme that catalyzes the final two steps in the biosynthesis of tryptophan. It is commonly found in Eubacteria, Archaebacteria, Protista, Fungi, and Plantae. However, it is absent from Animalia. It is typically found as an α2β2 tetramer. The α subunits catalyze the reversible formation of indole and glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate (G3P) from indole-3-glycerol phosphate (IGP). The β subunits catalyze the irreversible condensation of indole and serine to form tryptophan in a pyridoxal phosphate (PLP) dependent reaction. Each α active site is connected to a β active site by a 25 Ångstrom long hydrophobic channel contained within the enzyme. This facilitates the diffusion of indole formed at α active sites directly to β active sites in a process known as substrate channeling. The active sites of tryptophan synthase are allosterically coupled.
Deoxyribonuclease refers to a group of glycoprotein endonucleases which are enzymes that catalyze the hydrolytic cleavage of phosphodiester linkages in the DNA backbone, thus degrading DNA. The role of the DNase enzyme in cells includes breaking down extracellular DNA (ecDNA) excreted by apoptosis, necrosis, and neutrophil extracellular traps (NET) of cells to help reduce inflammatory responses that otherwise are elicited. A wide variety of deoxyribonucleases are known and fall into one of two families, which differ in their substrate specificities, chemical mechanisms, and biological functions. Laboratory applications of DNase include purifying proteins when extracted from prokaryotic organisms. Additionally, DNase has been applied as a treatment for diseases that are caused by ecDNA in the blood plasma. Assays of DNase are emerging in the research field as well.
The lactose operon is an operon required for the transport and metabolism of lactose in E. coli and many other enteric bacteria. Although glucose is the preferred carbon source for most enteric bacteria, the lac operon allows for the effective digestion of lactose when glucose is not available through the activity of β-galactosidase. Gene regulation of the lac operon was the first genetic regulatory mechanism to be understood clearly, so it has become a foremost example of prokaryotic gene regulation. It is often discussed in introductory molecular and cellular biology classes for this reason. This lactose metabolism system was used by François Jacob and Jacques Monod to determine how a biological cell knows which enzyme to synthesize. Their work on the lac operon won them the Nobel Prize in Physiology in 1965.
Phosphoglucomutase is an enzyme that transfers a phosphate group on an α-D-glucose monomer from the 1 to the 6 position in the forward direction or the 6 to the 1 position in the reverse direction.
Galactokinase is an enzyme (phosphotransferase) that facilitates the phosphorylation of α-D-galactose to galactose 1-phosphate at the expense of one molecule of ATP. Galactokinase catalyzes the second step of the Leloir pathway, a metabolic pathway found in most organisms for the catabolism of α-D-galactose to glucose 1-phosphate. First isolated from mammalian liver, galactokinase has been studied extensively in yeast, archaea, plants, and humans.
Gadolinium(III) chloride, also known as gadolinium trichloride, is GdCl3. It is a colorless, hygroscopic, water-soluble solid. The hexahydrate GdCl3∙6H2O is commonly encountered and is sometimes also called gadolinium trichloride. Gd3+ species are of special interest because the ion has the maximum number of unpaired spins possible, at least for known elements. With seven valence electrons and seven available f-orbitals, all seven electrons are unpaired and symmetrically arranged around the metal. The high magnetism and high symmetry combine to make Gd3+ a useful component in NMR spectroscopy and MRI.
α-Galactosidase is a glycoside hydrolase enzyme that catalyses the following reaction:
X-gal is an organic compound consisting of galactose linked to a substituted indole. The compound was synthesized by Jerome Horwitz and collaborators in 1964. The formal chemical name is often shortened to less accurate but also less cumbersome phrases such as bromochloroindoxyl galactoside. The X from indoxyl may be the source of the X in the X-gal contraction. X-gal is often used in molecular biology to test for the presence of an enzyme, β-galactosidase, in the place of its usual target, a β-galactoside. It is also used to detect activity of this enzyme in histochemistry and bacteriology. X-gal is one of many indoxyl glycosides and esters that yield insoluble blue compounds similar to indigo dye as a result of enzyme-catalyzed hydrolysis.
Gadopentetic acid, sold under the brand name Magnevist, is a gadolinium-based MRI contrast agent.
Gadolinium(III) oxide (archaically gadolinia) is an inorganic compound with the formula Gd2O3. It is one of the most commonly available forms of the rare-earth element gadolinium, derivatives, of which are potential contrast agents for magnetic resonance imaging.
MRI contrast agents are contrast agents used to improve the visibility of internal body structures in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The most commonly used compounds for contrast enhancement are gadolinium-based contrast agents (GBCAs). Such MRI contrast agents shorten the relaxation times of nuclei within body tissues following oral or intravenous administration.
The enzyme Inositol phosphate-phosphatase is of the phosphodiesterase family of enzymes. It is involved in the phosphophatidylinositol signaling pathway, which affects a wide array of cell functions, including but not limited to, cell growth, apoptosis, secretion, and information processing. Inhibition of inositol monophosphatase may be key in the action of lithium in treating bipolar disorder, specifically manic depression.
Val Murray Runge is an American and Swiss professor of radiology and the editor-in-chief of Investigative Radiology. Runge was one of the early researchers to investigate the use of gadolinium-based contrast agents for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), giving the first presentation in this field, followed two years later by the first presentation of efficacy. His research also pioneered many early innovations in MRI, including the use of tilted planes and respiratory gating. His publication on multiple sclerosis in 1984 represented the third and largest clinical series investigating the role of MRI in this disease, and the first to show characteristic abnormalities on MRI in patients whose CT was negative.
Perfusion MRI or perfusion-weighted imaging (PWI) is perfusion scanning by the use of a particular MRI sequence. The acquired data are then post-processed to obtain perfusion maps with different parameters, such as BV, BF, MTT and TTP.
Marcos Boris Rotman was a Chilean American immunologist–molecular biologist and professor emeritus of Medical Science at Alpert Medical School of Brown University. He is widely recognized for performing the first single molecule experiments in biology. He died in July 2021 at the age of 96.
