Zinc is hypothesized to be co-released with glutamate at synapses of the central nervous system. Zinc binds to NR1/NR2A N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptors with high affinity and inhibits NMDAR function in a voltage-independent manner. The serine protease plasmin can cleave a number of substrates, including protease-activated receptors, and may play an important role in several disorders of t...

I N PREVIOUS REPORTS1-3 various methods, including radiotracer studies, revealed the capacity of plasmin to adsorb selectively to preformed venous and arterial clots. Components of the fibrinolysin system were labeled with iodine131 and their distribution studied following intravenous administration. The highest degree of adsorption to fibrin clots was exhibited by human plasminogen activated w...

I N PREVIOUS REPORTS1-3 various methods, including radiotracer studies, revealed the capacity of plasmin to adsorb selectively to preformed venous and arterial clots. Components of the fibrinolysin system were labeled with iodine131 and their distribution studied following intravenous administration. The highest degree of adsorption to fibrin clots was exhibited by human plasminogen activated w...

It has been speculated that the modified form of plasminogen, a precursor of proteolytic enzyme plasmin in plasma, plays an important role in fibrinolysis in the blood. The present study was undertaken to examine the production by alpha 2-macroglobulin-plasmin complexes. alpha 2-Macroglobulin-plasmin complexes were purified from urokinase-activated plasma by affinity chromatography on lysine-Se...

The plasminogen/plasmin system is involved in a variety of normal physiological and pathological processes, including tissue remodelling, angiogenesis and tumour metastasis. Plasminogen activators and receptors for plasminogen/plasminogen activators are essential for the processing of plasminogen to form the active serine protease plasmin. Plasmin can in turn positively or negatively regulate f...

Zymogens are delivered to the arterial wall by radial transmural convection. Plasminogen can be activated within the arterial wall to produce plasmin, which is involved in evolution of the atherosclerotic plaque. Vascular smooth muscle cells (vSMCs) protect the vessels from proteolytic injury due to atherosclerosis development by highly expressing endocytic LDL receptor-related protein-1 (LRP-1...

Keratinocytes were shown to induce the activation of plasminogen activator resulting in the formation of plasmin and the initiation of proteolysis in vitro. Activation of surface bound plasminogen may localize protease activity in the pericellular microenvironment and play a role in inducing both a conformational change and cell locomotion. Plasmin, however, can induce non-proteolytic effects o...

The combined presence of anti-phospholipid Ab (aPL) and thrombosis is recognized as the antiphospholipid syndrome (APS). The aPL represent a heterogeneous group of Ab that recognize various phospholipids (PL), PL-binding plasma proteins, and/or PL-protein complexes. Recently, we found the presence of antithrombin Ab in some APS patients and that some of these anti-thrombin Ab could inhibit thro...

Research on new fibrinolytic agents has been oriented towards the discovery of microbial proteases with plasmin-like activity, as alternative thrombolytic for thrombosis treatment. This study reports characterization an extracellular serine metalloprotease approximately 56 kDa, and fibrinogenolytic isolated from a S. marcescens strain obtained Amazon (CBAM 519). The enzyme showed optimum activi...

Three kinds of plasmin were found to be generated when plasminogen or [(125)I]plasminogen was incubated at 32 degrees C for longer than 20 min in urokinase and 50% glycerol. Each plasmin was then separated by G-200 or G-75 Sephadex filtration, and its physicochemical properties were determined. The molecular weights of the three plasmins as determined by G-200 Sephadex filtration were 125,000+/...