Proteolytic degradation of extracellular matrix is thought to play an important role both in emphysema and in tissue development and repair. Retinoic acid has been suggested to modify tissue injury, and in an animal model of emphysema may induce alveolar repair. Since cytokines can induce matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) production in fibroblasts and neutrophil elastase (NE) can activate MMPs, we...

N-{[5-(methanesulfonyl)pyridin-2-yl]methyl}-6-methyl-5-(1-methyl-1H-pyrazol-5-yl)-2-oxo-1-[3-(trifluoromethyl)phenyl]-1,2-dihydropyridine-3-carboxamide (AZD9668) is a novel, oral inhibitor of neutrophil elastase (NE), an enzyme implicated in the signs, symptoms, and disease progression in NE-driven respiratory diseases such as bronchiectasis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease via its rol...

We have purified to homogeneity two forms of a new serine protease inhibitor specific for elastase/chymotrypsin from the ovary gland of the desert locust Schistocerca gregaria. This protein, greglin, has 83 amino acid residues and bears putative phosphorylation sites. Amino acid sequence alignments revealed no homology with pacifastin insect inhibitors and only a distant relationship with Kazal...

Current concepts relating to the pathogenesis of emphysema associated with cigarette smoking is that an imbalance exists within the lower respiratory tract between neutrophil elastase and the local anti-neutrophil elastase screen, enabling uninhibited neutrophil elastase to destroy the alveolar structures over time. The possible role of alveolar macrophages in contributing to this imbalance was...

Elastase is released from human neutrophils during the early events of blood coagulation. Human plasma kallikrein has been shown to stimulate neutrophil chemotaxis, aggregation, and oxygen consumption. Therefore, the ability of kallikrein to release neutrophil elastase was investigated. Neutrophils were isolated by dextran sedimentation, and elastase release was measured by both an enzyme-linke...

AIM The aim of this work was to evaluate the neutrophil activation state in chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients under hemodialysis, and its linkage with resistance to recombinant human erythropoietin (rhEPO) therapy. METHODS We studied 63 CKD patients under hemodialysis and rhEPO treatment (32 responders and 31 non-responders to rhEPO therapy). In 20 of the CKD patients (10 responders and 1...

Intestinal ischemia-reperfusion (I-R) is associated with lung injury and the acute respiratory distress syndrome. The hypothesis of this study was that intestinal I-R activates circulating neutrophils to promote elastase-mediated lung injury. Isolated rat lungs were perfused with blood or plasma obtained after intestinal I-R, and lung neutrophil retention and injury and bronchoalveolar lavage (...

There is evidence that neutrophil production is a balance between the proliferative action of granulocyte-colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) and a negative feedback from mature neutrophils (the chalone). Two neutrophil serine proteases have been implicated in granulopoietic regulation: pro-proteinase 3 inhibits granulocyte macrophage-colony-forming unit (CFU-GM) growth, and elastase mutations ca...

Previous investigations suggested that elastolytic activity found in platelets could be due to contamination by neutrophil elastase. In the present study, the lysate of blood platelets free of detectable neutrophils was examined for elastase-like activity using tertiary-butyloxycarbonyl (tBOC)-ala-ala-pro-ala-aminomethyl coumarin (I), tBOC-ala-ala-pro-val-aminomethyl coumarin (II), and succinyl...

background: neutrophils have an important role in the rapid innate immune response, and the release or active secretion of elastase from neutrophils is linked to various inflammatory responses. purpose of this study was to determine how the human neutrophil elastase affects the interleukin-10 (il-10) response in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (pbmc). materials and methods: in this prospecti...