Immunochemical Studies of Plasma

Dr. Bagdasarian is the recipient of special Postdoctoral Fellowship HL52189 from the National Institutes of Health. Drs. Talamo and Colman are the recipients of Career Development Awards AM31937 and HL48075, respectively. Received for publication 10 April 1974 and in revised form 5 August 1974. viduals contained 103±13 /g/ml prekallikrein antigen. Although in mild liver disease, functional and immunologic kallikrein are proportionally depressed, the levels of prekallikrein antigen in plasma samples from patients with severe liver disease remains 40% of normal, while the functional kallikrein activity was about 8%. These observations suggest that the livers of these patients have synthesized a proenzyme that cannot be converted to active kallikrein.