OBJECTIVE To describe trends of reported alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency mortality in the United States from 1979-1991. METHODS We analyzed death certificate reports in the multiple-cause mortality files compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics. RESULTS Of the 26,866,600 deaths that occurred during the 13-year period, 1,930 had alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency listed as a cause of...

Oxidative stress is involved in the pathogenesis of airway obstruction in α1-antitrypsin deficient patients. This may result in a shortening of telomere length, resulting in cellular senescence. To test whether telomere length differs in α1-antitrypsin deficient patients compared with controls, we measured telomere length in DNA from peripheral blood cells of 217 α1-antitrypsin deficient patien...

The concentrations of five normally occurring protease inhibitors in serum and synovial fluid were compared in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthrosis, and normal controls. The patients with rheumatoid arthritis showed a significant rise in alpha1-antitrypsin, alpha1-antichymotrypsin, and inter-alpha-trypsin inhibitor (in decreasing order) in serum as well as in synovial fluid. In sy...

Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency is known as a significant genetic risk factor for COPD for carriers of phenotype PIMZ, and for phenotypes PIZZ and PISZ. Genetic epidemiological studies for alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency conducted by others on both COPD patients and concurrent non-COPD controls were used to estimate the risk factors for all six phenotypic classes (namely, the normal phenotype PIM...

objective(s):psoriasis is an autoimmune disease that appears on the skin. although psoriasis is clinically and histologically well characterized, its pathogenesis is unknown in detail. the aims of this study were to evaluate the proteome of psoriatic patients' sera and to compare them with those of normal healthy human to find valuable biomarkers. materials and methods: in a case-control s...

Maternal serum alpha 1-antitrypsin concentrations were measured serially in pregnant women who were normotensive and those with mild, moderate, and severe hypertension of pregnancy from 27 weeks' gestation to term. alpha 1-antitrypsin concentrations increased with advancing gestation in all four groups. In addition, the hypertensive pregnancies showed higher than normal concentrations at each s...

The serum alpha-1 antitrypsin level was measured in 60 patients with endogenous uveitis, 27 patients with phacoallergic endophthalmitis, 12 patients with phacolytic glaucoma, and 58 healthy subjects. Thirty-four patients with endogenous uveitis were also followed up for 6 months after treatment, and the serum alpha-1 antitrypsin level was measured again. There was a significant rise in the seru...

HepG2 cells were employed as model system to investigate potential relationships between early protein processing and Ca2+ storage by the endoplasmic reticulum. Ca2+ was required for glycoprotein processing and export by intact cells. The processing and export of alpha 1-antitrypsin and the secretion of complement factor 3, which are glycosylated proteins, were inhibited by the Ca2+ ionophore i...

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) affects over 65 million individuals worldwide, where α-1-antitrypsin deficiency is a major genetic cause of the disease. The α-1-antitrypsin gene, SERPINA1, expresses an exceptional number of mRNA isoforms generated entirely by alternative splicing in the 5'-untranslated region (5'-UTR). Although all SERPINA1 mRNAs encode exactly the same protein, ex...

A patient with a low serum concentration of alpha1-antitrypsin (0-1 g/l) but with an M-like phenotype is described. Her parents and 2 sibs have a PIM phenotype, but all except the father have approximately half-normal levels of alpha1-antitrypsin: The M-like variant apparently cannot be distinguished from M-alpha1-antitrypsin, when it occurs with M in heterozygotes. The proposita has severe air...