Interaction of medullasin and plasma inhibitors.

概要

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Medullasin is a serine protease found in human bone marrow cells. It resembles elastase, but has no elastinolytic activity. It consists of 238 amino acid residues with Tie as the amino terminal and His as the carboxyl terminal. Medullasin causes inflammation characterized by the infiltration of a large number of macrophages when injected into animal skin. Protease inhibitors in plasma such as α2-macroglobulin and α1-antitrypsin inhibited the protease by equimolar ratio. Injection of the mixture of medullasin and α2-macroglobulin or α1-antitrypsin into animal skin caused no inflammation. When these inhibitors were injected 5 sec after the injection of medullasin, phlogistic activity of the protease was not prevented by them. These results indicate that medullasin released into the tissues directly from granulocytes attaches to them immediately in such a manner that plasma inhibitors are not able to inhibit it. Therefore, medullasin released from granulocytes directly to the tissues is considered to be able to act on them in spite of the presence of a large amount of plasma protease inhibitors.
日本炎症・再生医学会の論文