ABSTRACT
We investigate the effects of urea and its derivatives on the ATPase activity and on the in vitro motility of chicken skeletal muscle actomyosin. Mg-ATPase rate of myosin subfragment-1 (S1) is increased by 4-fold by 0.3M 1,3-diethylurea (DEU), but it is unaffected by urea, thiourea, and 1,3-dimethylurea at ≤1M concentration. Thus, we further examine the effects of DEU in comparison to those of urea as reference. In in vitro motility assay, we find that in the presence of 0.3M DEU, the sliding speeds of actin filaments driven by myosin and heavy meromyosin (HMM) are significantly decreased to 1/16 and 1/6.6, respectively, compared with the controls. However, the measurement of the actin-activated ATPase activity of HMM shows that the maximal rate, Vmax, is almost unchanged with DEU. Thus, the myosin-driven sliding motility of actin filaments is significantly impeded in the presence of 0.3M DEU, whereas the cyclic interaction of myosin with F-actin occurs during the ATP turnover, the rate of which is close to that without DEU. In contrast to DEU, 0.3M urea exhibits only modest effects on both actin-activated ATPase and sliding motility of actomyosin. Thus, DEU has the effect of uncoupling the sliding motility of actomyosin from its ATP turnover.
Subject(s)
Actins/chemistry , Actomyosin/chemistry , Adenosine Triphosphate/chemistry , Movement , Myosin Subfragments/chemistry , Skeletal Muscle Myosins/chemistry , Actins/metabolism , Actomyosin/metabolism , Adenosine Triphosphate/metabolism , Animals , Chickens , Myosin Subfragments/metabolism , Skeletal Muscle Myosins/metabolismABSTRACT
To improve powder flow of a high-dose direct compression formulation (drug content 30%), we compared a two-step operation for mixing glidants with a conventional one-step glidant mixing process. This two-step mixing operation was studied with two kinds of mixtures; an active pharmaceutical ingredient (API)-glidant combination and a direct compression excipient-glidant combination. The two-step operation permitted the selection of the optimum glidant type and concentration in each glidant-mixing procedure even though the formulation had different powder properties such as micronized API and enlarged direct compression vehicles, whereas the conventional approaches forced the selection of a certain glidant type and concentration at one-step mixing. The addition of 0.5% nonporous silica markedly improved API flow. In contrast, 1.0% porous silica was the appropriate glidant to enhance excipient flow at direct compression excipient-glidant mixing. The two-step operation dominantly enhanced powder flow when the appropriate API-glidant mixture and the suitable direct compression excipients-glidant mixture were blended compared to the one-step operation with its optimum glidant concentration. The results showed that the angle of repose was 43 degrees and the critical orifice diameter was 10 mm in the two-step operation, whereas it was 47 degrees and 16 mm in the one-step operation. The two-step operation of glidant mixing enhanced powder flow of the high-dose direct compression formulation compared with the one-step operation. The two-step operation eliminates the bottleneck of powder flow and allows direct compression to be more worth applying for formulation and process development trials.
