Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0033036 (APC)
 10,214 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Protein C is the zymogen of an anticoagulant serine protease and is converted to its active form (activated protein C: APC) by thrombin in the presence of thrombomodulin. APC plays an important role in regulating coagulation and fibrinolysis by inactivating not only blood coagulation factors Va and VIIIa but also type-1 plasminogen activator inhibitor (PAI-1). The aim of the present study was to examine the effect of a human APC product (designated as CTC-111), compared with that of heparin, on the disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) induced by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in rats. LPS (1 mg/kg/h) infusion was performed through a femoral vein for 4 h. One-fifth amount of the total dosage of CTC-111 or heparin was injected into the other femoral vein, followed by a 4-h infusion of the remainder. Both CTC-111 (10,000-100,000 U/kg) and heparin (400-800 IU/kg) inhibited the decrease in platelet count and fibrinogen level equally. The prolonged activated partial thromboplastin time and prothrombin time observed in DIC rats were further elongated in both CTC-111- and heparin-treated rats. But, this prolongation was less in CTC-111-treated rats than in the heparin-treated ones. Heparin inhibited the increase in fibrin and fibrinogen degradation products more prominently than CTC-111. On the other hand, CTC-111 strongly inhibited the increase in PAI-1 activity but heparin did not. These results suggest that CTC-111 may enhance fibrinolysis through its direct inhibitory effect on PAI-1. The parameters for liver or renal damage, i.e., plasma glutamic-oxaloacetic transaminase (GOT), glutamic-pyruvic transaminase (GPT), creatinine (Cre) and blood urea nitrogen (BUN), were significantly increased by LPS infusion. Both CTC-111 (100,000 U/kg) and heparin (800 IU/kg) decreased the increase in GOT and GPT levels significantly, whereas neither affected the increase in Cre or BUN. From these results, the activation of the blood coagulation system might partially contribute to the progression of liver damage caused by LPS, and might be less involved in the progression of renal damage in this model. In conclusion, CTC-111 showed both anticoagulant and profibrinolytic activity in the LPS-induced DIC model without excessive prolongation of coagulation time. From these results, CTC-111 is expected to be a useful remedy for DIC without the risk of bleeding.
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PMID:Effect of activated human protein C on disseminated intravascular coagulation induced by lipopolysaccharide in rats. 1105 Jun 97

The efficacy of immunization with Salmonella typhimurium aroA to deliver the plasmid pRc/CMV-HBsAg (i.e. an oral DNA vaccine) was compared with that of intramuscular immunization with the same plasmid DNA, and with recombinant HBsAg protein, in a HBsAg transgenic mouse model. A single dose of oral DNA vaccine evoked vigorous Th1 cell and CTL responses and production of IgG2 subclass of anti-HBs after 2 weeks, and this was accompanied by a transient hepatitic flare with elevated alanine aminotransferase in the first 3 weeks. Concomitantly, the level of HBsAg-mRNA in liver tissues decreased by more than fourfold and viral-antigen expression was curtailed markedly in hepatocytes compared with controls. Hepatitic flare subsided after 3 weeks, but suppression of the transgene expression was continued in the absence of overt liver pathology for the remaining duration of the experiment (i.e. 12 weeks), and possibly beyond. The other vaccines could also break immune tolerance, but this was achieved only after repeated booster doses of the respective vaccines, and they did not affect transgene expression, or induce hepatic flare. We previously showed in non-transgenic mice that immunization by the oral DNA vaccine is achieved by an active intestinal infection with a bacterial carrier that is an adept intracellular parasite, and the immune response to the vaccination is orchestrated by phagocytic APC. Our present findings further implicated that the combined effects of an innate and a specific immune response induced by oral DNA vaccination are crucial in down-regulating HBsAg-transgene expression in hepatocytes.
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PMID:A single dose of oral DNA immunization delivered by attenuated Salmonella typhimurium down-regulates transgene expression in HBsAg transgenic mice. 1255 75