Antithrombin-III (AT-III) and factor VIII coagulant (F VIII:C) and antigenic (F VIII:RA) activities have been studied in nine conservatively treated and 26 dialysed uraemic patients. AT-III levels were not significantly different from those of controls in either group. Among dialysed patients, those who had experienced thrombotic occlusions of the vascular accesses could not be distinguished fr...

We describe a combinatorial virtual screening approach for predicting high specificity heparin/heparan sulfate sequences using the well-studied antithrombin-heparin interaction as a test case. Heparan sulfate hexasaccharides were simulated in the 'average backbone' conformation, wherein the inter-glycosidic bond angles were held constant at the mean of the known solution values, irrespective of...

Serum elastase and its inhibitors were determined in the sera of heavily burnt patients. Serum elastase levels were elevated at two to eight days after a severe burn-accident and returned towards normal values from the 10th day on. Both alpha1-antitrypsin and alpha2-macroglobulin levels were also elevated in the sera of heavily burnt patients. alpha1-Antitrypsin showed a parallel evolution to t...

The paper reports presented here reflect the current leading issues in the intensive care literature, the search for the ‘magic bullet’ in sepsis being an obvious example. Many of the trials in sepsis that are currently being reported were presented at recent conferences [1]. This is the case for the KyperSept Antithrombin III Study (see paper report) [2]. The summary of this paper highlights t...

Human antithrombin III has been shown to contain four identical N-glycosidically linked carbohydrate chain per molecule. These carbohydrate chains have been investigated by sugar and methylation analysis before and after removal of N-acetylneuraminic acid residues. The chains have been further investigated by Smith degradation, trifluoroacetolytic degradation, and degradation after chromium tri...

The synthesis of per-sulfated flavonoids, organic compounds with multiple sulfate groups, is challenging. We present here a two-step synthesis of fully sulfated flavonoids in high overall yields using the 2,2,2-trichloroethyl moiety as a protecting group. The two-step synthesis results in exclusive formation of the per-sulfated product in contrast to common sulfating agents that yield different...

The development of disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) is associated with increased sepsis mortality. Antithrombin (AT) is one of several anticoagulants that have been studied in randomized trials of sepsis without benefit. In a recent study, Iba and colleagues reviewed data from patients who were treated for sepsis-related DIC with two lower doses of AT concentrate than studied in pri...

There is a lack of well-established criteria for the specific measurement of fibrinolytic parameters. On behalf of the SSC, the subcommittee on Fibrinolysis started a process to develop criteria for the specific measurement of fibrinolytic variables. This report describes the criteria for the specific measurement of plasmin inhibitor activity. In summary, a plasma deficient in plasmin inhibitor...

1 Antithrombin substitution before extracorporeal circulation attenuates perioperative coagulation activation and might decrease postoperative troponin elevation: a report of preliminary data R Busley1, W Dietrich1, S Braun2, J Weipert3, JA Richter1 Departments of 1Anesthesiology, 2Laboratory Medicine and 3Cardiac Surgery, German Heart Center Munich, Germany (e-mail: [email protected]) Critic...

Human antithrombin III (AT-III) contains three disulphide linkages (Cys-8-Cys-128, Cys-21-Cys-95 and Cys-247-Cys-430), and two of them (Cys-8-Cys-128 and Cys-21-Cys-95) are situated near the heparin-binding domain of the inhibitor. We demonstrate in this paper that: (i) partially reduced AT-III (with Cys-8-Cys-128 and Cys-21-Cys-95 quantitatively reduced) could be re-oxidized in air to regain 7...