PURPOSE The complement system is part of the innate defense system of the body, and it contributes to inflammatory conditions. The current study examined tears for the presence of complement components, the activity of the components, and the presence of regulatory components. METHODS The significance of a functional complement system in tears was examined in four ways. First, the presence an...

background: inappropriate activation or blockage of the inhibition of complement system could cause tissue damages in autoimmune diseases particularly rheumatoid arthritis (ra). defect in complement component regulation may cause damages to tissues, on the other hand, or the damaged tissue might affect the unnecessary activation of complement components.   objective: to investigate the expressi...

It is generally agreed that normal spinal fluid is entirely devoid of complement, but the reports of its presence in the spinal fluid in cerebrospinal diseases are contradictory. Complement was found in the spinal fluid of all cases of meningococcus meningitis by Ward and Fothergill (1), but was reported to be absent in the same diseases by others (24). Ward et al. (1, 5) found complement to be...

T h e phenomenology of the complement system was quite extensively worked out by the early IY4Os when the four classical complement components. C'l, C'4. C'3 and C'2, had been described as had the 'anlage' of the observations that there were multiple pathways of activation. In the lY6Os, the complement components were purified as proteins and as antigens. T h e biochemistry of their interaction...

We have generated a SAGE (serial analysis of gene expression) library of normal sciatic nerve and found tags encoding for mRNAs of the complement system highly represented. RNA (RT-PCR and northern blot hybridization) and protein (western blot analysis and immunohistochemistry) studies confirmed these findings. High expression of classical pathway components, alternative pathway components and ...

Human complement is inactivated by plasmin, the proteolytic enzyme of plasma or serum active at or near neutrality. The addition of streptokinase to human serum, which converts plasminogen to plasmin, also causes the inactivation of complement components C'2 and C'4 and varying amounts of C'1. C'3 is the most resistant to inactivation by plasmin. Chloroform-activated human plasmin and bovine pl...