The purpose of these studies was to establish the validity of 125I
fibrin autoradiography--SDS gel techniques for monitoring degradation products from whole plasma or
blood clots. These methods can be used to study
fibrin degradation not only in patients with congenital
factor XIII deficiency, but also in patients with
disseminated intravascular coagulation or
deep vein thrombosis during the course of
thrombolytic therapy. Such an assay might
complement existing immunologic techniques to characterize
fibrin degradation in vivo by providing an in vitro analysis of the rate and pattern of
fibrin degradation in whole blood or plasma.
Fibrin degradation was traced by
Coomassie blue staining for
protein and by autoradiography on SDS-PAGE of degradation products released from a 125I-labeled
fibrin tracer. The degradation of non-crosslinked clots from purified
fibrin supplemented with
plasmin showed a typical release of X, Y, D, and E
fibrin fragments. Subsequently, all X and Y fragments were digested to D and E fragments. The degradation of non-crosslinked washed clots prepared from plasma supplemented with
plasmin reflected the same pattern. The degradation of non-crosslinked washed clots prepared from
EDTA anticoagulated plasma without added
plasmin also showed release of X, Y, D, and E fragments. However, in contrast to the non-crosslinked washed clots supplemented with
plasmin, there was no additional degradation of the X and Y fragments. These studies established that the pattern of degradation of the 125I-radiolabeled
fibrin tracer was similar to that of the total
protein released from the
fibrin clot as observed by
protein staining.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)