Determination of Protein C Antigen Levels in Hospitalized Patients with Blood Coagulative Defects

Abstract

Protein C, a vitamin K-dependent anticoagulant serine protease, is involved in blood coagulation. Activated protein C inactivates Va and VIIIa in purified protein systems and stimulates fibrinolysis by indirectly increasing the level of circulating plasminogen activator. In this process, protein S serve as an important factor for activated protein C. In recent years, excess protein S drives cancer cell proliferation and cell survival through oncogenic receptor Axl (Anexelekto). We determined changes of plasma protein C antigen by using rocket immunoassay both in 50 healthy individuals and 103 distinct hospitalized patients. In healthy individuals protein C antigen(PC:Ag) ranges o.6439- 1.4752 µ/ml. The results showed that plasma protein C antigen was considerably high in 22 diabetes mellitus. In contrast, the PC:Ag was significantly decreased in 19 liver cirrhosis(p< 0.001) and in closely line with serum albumin levels(p< 0.05). In 31 acute leukemias, on the average, there was slightly lower values in PC:Ag, and accompanied with the distribution of significant decrease of PC:Ag values in 5 FAB M5 subtype and in 9 hyperleukocytic leukemias. However, the 3 acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) with overt laboratory criteria of disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) had protein C concentration no lower than the remaining 2 patients with infectious DIC, which suggested the coagulopathy in APL might be due to mechanisms different from other forms of DIC.