Heparin, a sulfated polysaccharide belonging to the family of glycosaminoglycans, has numerous important biological activities, associated with its interaction with diverse proteins. Heparin is widely used as an anticoagulant drug based on its ability to accelerate the rate at which antithrombin inhibits serine proteases in the blood coagulation cascade. Heparin and the structurally related hep...

Antithrombin (AT) has been used for over 25 years to successfully treat disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC). A four-day AT therapy in patients with DIC in the KyberSept trial has been related to a clear survival benefit in patients not receiving concomitant heparin. Gonano and coworkers performed thrombelastography (TEG) measurements in patients with severe sepsis and clearly showed hy...

We have evaluated the efficacy of utilizing radioimmunoassays (RIAs) for prothrombin activation fragments (F2/F1 +2) and for thrombin-antithrombin complex (TAT) in purified systems and in whole blood. During venipuncture. appropriate anticoagulants were employed in order to prevent the generation of thrombin and factor Xa. The RIAs were shown to be specific for F2/F1 +2 as well as TAT and did n...

A chemical method has been devised for the quantitative determination of plasma antithrombin. A concentrate of antithrombin has been prepared from plasma. It also contains heparin cofactor activity. The two distinct activities could not be separated and may quite possibly be the properties of a single substance. When the concentrate is combined with heparin the capacity of the concentmte to des...

Antithrombin (AT) deficiency increases the risk of thrombosis. Current evidence shows that some SERPINC1 mutations responsible for antithrombin deficiency often present a slightly decreased or normal activity and therefore could not be detected by functional tests. This study was designed to compare activity assays and direct genetic analyses in identifying hereditary antithrombin deficiency. I...

S protein, a plasma glycoprotein with Mr 78,000, has been shown to interfere with the heparin-catalysed inhibition of thrombin by antithrombin III. This interaction was further evaluated in the present study. Native human blood was replaced by either radiolabelled antithrombin III or radiolabelled prothrombin in the reaction mixture, which was incubated at 37 degrees C. At various time interval...

A dilution/quench technique was used to monitor the time course of chemical modification on the heparin-cofactor (a) and progressive thrombin-inhibitory (b) activities of human antithrombin III. Treatment of antithrombin III (AT III) with 2,4,6-trinitrobenzenesulphonate at pH 8.3 and 25 degrees C leads to the loss of (a) at 60-fold more rapid rate than the loss of (b). This is consistent with p...

Sumac is the common name for a genus (Rhus) that contains over 250 individual species of flowering plants in the family Anacardiaceae. These plants are found in temperate and tropical regions worldwide, often grow in areas of marginal agricultural capacity, and have a long history of use by indigenous people for medicinal and other uses. The research efforts on sumac extracts to date indicate a...

INTRODUCTION Treatment of sepsis is aimed at increasing both the duration and quality of survival. A long-term focus on quality of life (QoL) in clinical trial evaluations of sepsis care should be a priority. METHOD QoL data were used to evaluate the effects of intravenous antithrombin III treatment for severe sepsis measured for up to 90 days during the follow-up phase of the KyberSept phase...

Clinically used anticoagulants are inhibitors of enzymes involved in the coagulation pathway, primarily thrombin and factor Xa. These agents can be either direct or indirect inhibitors of clotting enzymes. Heparin-based anticoagulants are indirect inhibitors that enhance the proteinase inhibitory activity of a natural anticoagulant, antithrombin. Despite its phenomenal success, current anticoag...