Combination of glucosamine improved therapeutic effect of low-dose cyclosporin A in patients with atopic dermatitis: a pilot study.

Both glucosamine and cyclosporin have been reported to show immunomodulatory effect with inhibition of each different key transcription factor for cytokine gene expression and T-cell function. The overall purpose of this pilot study was to assess the feasibility of the combination of cyclosporin with glucosamine for the treatment of patients with atopic dermatitis. Twelve patients more than 12 years old who required systemic cyclosporin were included in the study. Two of them dropped out due to violation of medication schedule. The single (S) and combination (C) regimens were crossed over every 2 weeks without a washout period between the cross-over for 6 months. Five patients were randomly assigned to the S regimen first (SC sequence), whereas the other five were given the C first (CS sequence). The change of SCORAD index was analyzed as the primary efficacy end-point by general linear model and piecewise linear mixed model. The SCORAD index was reduced with both SC and CS sequence regimens. In particular, index reduction with the C was more than that associated with S regimen; this difference increased as time lapsed. The glucosamine combination was predicted to cause an additive decrease in the mean percent change of the SCORAD index (~6%), with decreasing interleukin (IL)-4 and IL-5 cytokine levels but without increasing treatment-related adverse events. This study suggests that the C would produce better clinical outcomes than the S regimen in patients with atopic dermatitis, although confirmatory clinical trials are warranted to determine the effect of combination.

Catalytic activities of intracellular dimeric neopullulanase on cyclodextrin, acarbose and maltose.

Multi-substrate specificity of neopullulanase towards cyclodextrin, acarbose and maltose was investigated using a clone originating from Bacillus stearothermophilus IMA6503. The enzyme purified from Escherichia coli harbouring the corresponding nplA gene hydrolysed beta-cyclodextrin (beta-CD) to maltose and glucose. It exhibited substrate preference for beta-CD, starch and pullulan in the proportions of 10.4:1.2:1. The enzyme not only hydrolysed acarbose, an alpha-amylase inhibitor, to a pseudotrisaccharide (PTS) and glucose, but also transferred PTS to glucose, forming isoacarbose. Moreover, it hydrolysed maltose to glucose and transferred the glucose to another maltose molecule to form panose when maltose was present at a low concentration (0.5%) in the reaction solution. The enzyme catalysed condensation between two maltose molecules and subsequent hydrolysis of the resulting 6(2)-O-alpha-maltosyl-maltose to glucose and panose, when maltose concentration was increased to 20%. Neopullulanase was likely to be present in monomer-dimer equilibrium with a molar ratio of 1:9 in 50 mM sodium acetate buffer (pH 6.0). The association-dissociation equilibrium of neopullulanase was shifted to monomerization by KCl. When the content of monomer increased in the reaction mixture, the specific activity towards soluble starch increased to 150%, while that towards beta-CD decreased to 80%. Therefore, multi-substrate specificity of neopullulanase was likely to be modulated by the shift of monomer-dimer association equilibrium.