Proteolysis inhibitors from Ascaris lumbricoides: fact or fiction?

The results of our own 25 years investigations on biological activity of proteolytic inhibitors of Ascaris lumbricoides with the help of various experimental models were discussed. As it results from these studies alpha-chymotrypsin and trypsin inhibitors from A. lumbricoides are not fiction but are substances with significant biological activity, which may be important in regulation of the host-parasite system as well as parasite pathogenic factor.

[Effect of proteolysis inhibitors from Ascaris lumbricoides on the coagulation and fibrinolysis of human plasma]. / Die Einwirkung von Inhibitoren der Proteolyse aus Ascaris lumbricoides auf die Gerinnung und Fibrinolyse des Menschenplasmas.

By means of the method of ROLA & PUDLES modified by the authors the effect of trypsin and chymotrypsin inhibitors isolated from body walls of Ascaris lumbricoides on coagulation and fibrinolysis of human plasma in vitro was studied. The effect of both Ascaris inhibitors on coagulation phases I and II, the inhibition of thromboplastin and thrombin generations (thromboelastography, prothrombin and thrombin times) and the fibrinogenesis retardation of human plasma (time of lysis of euglobulin clot, time of clot fibrinolysis activated by streptokinase) were found. "The stairs phenomenon" was observed on thromboelastographic curves. The plasmin activity in an active form as well as its formation from plasminogen by streptokinase activation were reduced by chymotrypsin and trypsin Ascaris inhibitors alike.