[Antidepressive effect of a Hypericum extract standardized to an active hypericine complex. Biochemical and clinical studies]. / Antidepressive Wirkung eines auf den Wirkstoffkomplex Hypercin standardisierten Hypericum-Extraktes. Biochemische und klinische Untersuchungen.

In 6 women with depressive symptoms aged 55-65 years the effect on the excretion of urinary metabolits of noradrenaline and dopamine was measured after a monotherapy with the active hypericine complex (Psychotonin M). In all patients there was a significant increase in 3-methoxy-4-hydroxyphenylglucol which is considered an expression of a beginning antidepressive reaction. With the same patients supplemented with further 9 cases the clinical influence on the depression was measured during a period of 4-6 weeks, with the rating-scales SCAG (Clinical assessment geriatric scale) and DSI (Depression Status Inventory) there was shown a quantitative improvement of the items anxiety, dysphoric mood, loss of interest, hypersomnia, anorexia, depression regularly worse in the morning, insomnia, obstipation, psychomotoric retardation and feeling of worthlessness.

'Vital' forms of depression.

Vital depression must be diagnosed when the patient complains of fatigue, oppressive feelings of heaviness and narrowness as well as inhibition of thinking and acting and when such symptoms are more obvious in the morning than in the afternoon or evening. Besides there is an inability to experience pleasure and to pursue interests. Vital depression however is the target symptom for the indication of treatment with specific antidepressants. This applies not only to endogenous but also to reactive depressions and to various other psychiatric diseases at the bottom of which vital depressive symptoms can be found when investigated.

Interaction of a bacterial adenosine triphosphatase with phospholipid bilayers.

A solubilized nonparticulate adenosine triphosphatase from Streptococcus fecalis spheroplast membranes (Abrams, A., and C. Baron, Biochemistry, 7,501 (1968)) interacts at pH 7.5 with lipid bilayer membranes to produce a 10(2)- to 10(4)-fold increase in the electric conductance of the bilayer. In addition, a small decrease in the electrical capacitance of the interactant system is also observed. Interaction is obtained with bilayers formed from a solution in n-decane of either purified egg phosphatidyl-choline, synthetic diphytanoyl phosphatidyl-choline, or a total extract of the membrane lipid of S. fecalis. The magnitude of the increase in conductance is dependent on the presence of Mg(++) and upon the concentrations of both Na(+) and K(+) in the range of 10(-2) to 10(-1)M. An additional tenfold increase in conductance is obtained when ATP is added to the ambient aqueous phase surrounding the bilayer ATPase interactant system. No conductance change is obtained with ATPase which has been treated with pronase. ATPase activity is dependent upon Mg(++) and upon the concentrations of Na(+) and K(+) in the region of 10(-1)M. The function of the ATPase in the intact bacterial membrane is apparently associated with the active transport of cations. The increased conductance in the bilayer which results from its interaction with the ATPase, together with the similarity between the dependence of this interaction and the dependence of ATPase activity on Mg(++), ATP, and the Na(+), K(+) concentrations suggests that the bilayer-ATPase interactant complex may be similar in structure and properties to the membrane-ATPase complex in the intact organism.