Alpha 1 Antitrypsin Human Plasma Partially Purified
Alpha-1 Antitrypsin (AAT), is an inhibitor of the serine protease trypsin. AAT can inhibit many other serine proteases as well, and is thus a general serine protease inhibitor or serpin1. The first part of its name comes from the fact that AAT is a protein that migrates in the alpha-1 region on serum protein electrophoresis2.
AAT is produced by the liver and is one of the classical acute phase response proteins, with serum levels increasing during states of acute inflammation3-6. The role of AAT in most circumstances is protective. As a protease inhibitor, its main role is to prevent undesired proteolytic degradation7,8,9. It is particularly important in inhibiting neutrophil elastase in the lung, and the absence or deficiency of this inhibition leads to morbidity and mortality in a variety of respiratory conditions10-14. AAT can also act as an anti-inflammatory agent and can directly modulate the immune response in various ways, effecting the proliferation of lymphocytes and the function of other immune system effectors such as monocytes, neutrophils and cytokines such as TNF-alpha15-18.
The measurement of serum AAT levels can be clinically useful for a variety of conditions, the most obvious one being AAT deficiency, a disease usually caused by any one of a number of genetic mutations19. AAT deficiency can result in early severe emphysema11,12,20 and cirrhosis and other diseases of the liver20,21, due to uninhibited proteolytic activity in these tissues. The measurement of AAT and various AAT complexes has also been reported to be useful in the diagnosis, prognosis and in monitoring of other specific pathologies22-27, though few have gained widespread use.
ADULT ALPHA-1 ANTITRYPSIN REFERENCE RANGE:90-200 mg/dL
REFERENCES
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- 22. Laurent, M.R., et. al. Circulating Immune Complexes, Serum Immunoglobulins, and Acute Phase Proteins in Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis. Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, 40, 66-69, 1981.
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