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Biomedical subjects

M Vered

Publications and source records attributed to M Vered.

23 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed1985

A new elastase inhibitor from Streptococcus pneumoniae protects against acute lung injury induced by neutrophil granules.

A neutrophil elastase-inhibitor isolated from lysed pneumococcal cells, as well as trypsin-digest peptides derived from this factor, were tested for their ability to suppress acute lung injury in mice treated with human neutrophil granule extracts. Injury was assessed by measuring pulmonary sequestration of circulating 125I-labeled albumin, lung water, and lung hemoglobin. Both the native inhibitor and the tryptic-peptides gave good protection when preincubated with granule extract for brief periods before intrapulmonary instillation. Lesser, but still significant, protection was observed in the absence of preincubation. Protection was not simply due to addition of exogenous proteins to the granule extract because substitution of goat immunoglobulin for pneumococcal fraction was ineffective. These results suggest that pneumococcal elastase-inhibitors, recently described by us, may play a role in minimizing lung injury during pneumococcal pneumonia.

Acute Disease↗
PubMed1984

Inhibitors of human neutrophil elastase in extracts of Streptococcus pneumoniae.

Alveolar architecture is spared during most pneumococcal pneumonias, despite the presence in pneumonic exudate of many neutrophils containing a potent elastase. We explored the possibility that pneumococci might contain an inhibitor of this enzyme. We found that pneumococcal extracts prepared by sonication or by lysis with sodium deoxycholate contained 2 different inhibitors of human neutrophil elastase. Both inhibitors were specific for neutrophil elastase and did not affect pancreatic elastase or trypsin. Inhibitor I was partly purified by affinity chromatography and preparative acrylamide gel electrophoresis and shown to be a negatively charged, low molecular weight substance that inhibited competitively (Lineweaver-Burk analysis). Inhibition depended on ionic interaction with the cationic enzyme and could be blocked by 0.15 M NaCl. For this reason, the first agent seemed unlikely to play an important role in modulating neutrophil elastase activity in inflammatory exudates and was not studied further. The second agent (Inhibitor II) eluted in the high molecular weight fraction during Sephacryl S-300 chromatography. Gradient SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of partly purified Inhibitor II revealed an apparent molecular weight of 140,000 daltons. This agent inhibited noncompetitively and remained active in the presence of 0.15 M NaCl. Prolonged incubation with TPCK-trypsin resulted in cleavage of Inhibitor II into smaller fragments, which could be further dissociated by reduction with dithiothreitol. Inactivation of neutrophil elastase with N-acetyl-alanyl-alanyl-prolyl-valyl-chloromethyl ketone prevented complex formation between this enzyme and Inhibitor II, suggesting that an unblocked binding pocket in neutrophil elastase is required for its complexation to the noncompetitive pneumococcal inhibitor.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Biomechanical Phenomena↗
PubMed1981

Inhibition of porcine elastase II by chicken ovoinhibitor.

Interaction of porcine elastase II with native and modified chicken egg-white ovoinhibitor was studied by determining the residual activity of the partially inhibited enzyme and by direct measurement of the stoichiometry of interaction using affinity chromatography, electrophoresis and gel filtration. It was found that the chymotrypsin binding site that is not modified by mild oxidation with N-chlorosuccinimide (Shechter et al., Biochemistry, (1977) 16, 992-997) is capable of binding elastase II as well. The binding of chymotrypsin and elastase II is mutually exclusive and the affinity of chymotrypsin is stronger. Binding of 2 mol trypsin as 1 mol elastase I by ovoinhibitor does not interfere with the binding of elastase II. There is also an indication that the second binding site for chymotrypsin is capable of forming a complex with an additional molecule of elastase II, but the binding is so weak that it could be detected only by electrophoresis.

Amino Acids↗