In disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) there is extensive crosstalk between activation of inflammation and coagulation. Endogenous anticoagulatory pathways are downregulated by inflammation, thus decreasing the natural anti-inflammatory mechanisms that these pathways possess. Supportive strategies aimed at inhibiting activation of coagulation and inflammation may theoretically be justi...

Thrombin is a serine proteinase that plays a fundamental role in coagulation. In this study, we address the effects of ligand site recognition by alpha-thrombin on conformation and energetics in solution. Active site occupation induces large changes in secondary structure content in thrombin as shown by circular dichroism. Thrombin-D-Phe-Pro-Arg-chloromethyl ketone (PPACK) exhibits enhanced equ...

p-Aminobenzamidine is weakly fluorescent in neutral aqueous buffer, with excitation and emission maxima at 293 and 376 nm, respectively. Binding to trypsin results in a blue shift of the emission peak to 362 nm, and 50-fold fluorescence enhancement, while binding to thrombin causes a shift to 368 nm and a 230-fold fluorescence enhancement. This phenomenon is due to hydrophobic interactions, as ...

OBJECTIVE To determine whether increased antithrombin loss is present in children with chylothorax after cardiac surgery. METHODS Plasma and pleural effusion samples of children with chylous and non-chylous pleural effusion were assayed for antithrombin activity. RESULTS Ten children with chylothorax and five children with non-chylous pleural effusion were investigated. There was statistica...

The 3-O-sulfation of N-sulfated glucosamine is the last event in the biosynthesis of heparin/heparan sulfate, giving rise to the antithrombin-binding pentasaccharide sequence AGA*IA, which is largely associated with the antithrombotic activity of these molecules. The aim of the present study was the structural and biochemical characterization of a previously unreported AGA*IA*-containing octasa...

Heparin binding to rabbit histidine-rich glycoprotein (HRG) was studied in a purified system, allowing for determination of a heparin dissociation constant of approximately 5.5 X 10(-8) M for the interaction with HRG at pH 7.0. The strong interaction between heparin and HRG was demonstrated to be competitive with the binding of both antithrombin and thrombin to the heparin chain. HRG was furthe...

A growing body of evidence indicates that survivors of intensive care have an impaired quality of life. It is not entirely clear from the available literature whether this impairment is a complication of critical illness or a complication of therapy. There is little evidence to guide physicians to treatments in the intensive care unit that will minimize the effects of critical illness on these ...

OBJECTIVE To test the hypothesis that the blood antithrombin (AT) activity is correlated with the plasma aldosterone concentration (PAC), the plasma renin activity (PRA), and/or the PAC-to-PRA ratio during the late stage of pregnancy. METHODS The AT activity, PAC, and PRA were determined within 7 days prior to delivery in 47 women, consisting of 30 normotensive and 6 hypertensive women with s...

To achieve a reliable analytical quality for both monitoring and diagnostic testing, laboratories need to fulfil the widely accepted analytical performance goals based on the biological variation of the analytes of testing. Not only is the short-term analytical performance, which regularly is assessed by internal quality control procedures, of importance, but also the long-term analytical perfo...

BACKGROUND Antithrombin deficiency, defined by antithrombin levels of <70%, is a major thrombophilic condition associated with an increased risk of venous thromboembolism (VTE). No prospective data are available about the risk of recurrent VTE associated with mildly decreased antithrombin levels (70-80%). METHODS AND RESULTS Consecutive patients with a first VTE were stratified according to f...