Immunochemical Studies of Human Urinary Trypsin Inhibitor

Abstract

Antisera against purified urinary trypsin inhibitor (UTI-I, molecular weight 67,000) and UTI-III (molecular weight 23,000) were first produced in rabbits. Both anti- UTI-I and anti-UTI-III sera formed a single immunoprecipitin line with human plasma intera- trypsin inhibitor (IaTI), whereas two immunoprecipitin lines were formed with crude urine. It was speculated that both UTI-I and UTI-III might be present in normal human urine. In the present study, the inhibitory effects of anti-UTI sera on UTI activity were examined by three different assay methods. The results indicated that the inhibitory effect was almost immediate. Although the inhibitory effect of anti-UTI-III serum on UTI-III was almost of the same degree of completeness for the three assay methods, UTI-I was partially inhibited by the anti-UTI-I serum when residual trypsin activity was measured by the caseinolytic or fibrinolytic assay method. This discrepancy was considered to be due to the difference in conformational change between UTI-I and UTI-III by antigen-antibody reaction.