My watch list
my.chemeurope.com  
Login  

Acute phase protein



Acute-phase proteins are a class of proteins whose plasma concentrations increase (positive acute phase proteins) or decrease (negative acute phase proteins) in response to inflammation. This response is called the acute-phase reaction (also called acute phase response).   In response to injury, local inflammatory cells (neutrophil granulocytes and macrophages) secrete a number of cytokines into the bloodstream, most notable of which are the interleukins IL-1, IL-6 and IL-8, and TNF-α.

The liver responds by producing a large number of acute-phase reactants.

Examples

The notable are:

Serum albumin concentrations fall in acute disease states. For this reason albumin is sometimes referred to as a negative acute phase protein.

Clinical significance

Measurement of acute phase proteins is a useful marker of inflammation in both medical and veterinary clinical pathology. It corellates with the erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR).

See also

  • Wikipedia:MeSH_D12.776#MeSH_D12.776.124.050_---_acute-phase_proteins


 
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Acute_phase_protein". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia.
Your browser is not current. Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 does not support some functions on Chemie.DE