Word: ceruloplasmin
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Root of the trouble is a recessive gene. If only one parent has this defective gene, the child will not develop the disease, though he may pass on the gene. But if both parents have it, an average of one child out of four will have a deficiency of ceruloplasmin-a little-understood blue component of the blood, in which eight atoms of copper are bound into a large protein molecule. A deficiency of ceruloplasmin leads to a piling up of copper in such sensitive organs as the liver and brain...
Brother & Sister. To do this, they have perfected the use of a simplified, 50-cent test* to be given to any suspected cases and all relatives of known victims. It takes only one drop of blood. Anybody with a normal ceruloplasmin level can forget about Wilson's disease. But anybody with an abnormally low level, the Bronx doctors say, should have a further test for copper in the liver. If this registers high, the patient is assumed to have the chemical defect and is promptly put on drugs and diet in the hope of preventing the development of full...
More important than whether the reaction can be used as a test is the question of why it occurs at all. On this, Biochemist Akerfeldt shed some new light. What Akerfeldt's DPP reacts to is a copper-containing enzyme, ceruloplasmin, present in the blood. It had been assumed that there must be more of this enzyme in schizophrenic than in normal blood. Not so, said Akerfeldt: the reaction measures not the amount but the activity of ceruloplasmin, and this activity depends at least to some extent on the presence of a second substance which he has not identified...
| 1 |