Albumin, blood plasma

A method for the fractionation of plasma, allowing albumin, y-globulin, and fibrinogen to become available for clinical use, was developed during World War II (see also Fractionation, blood-plasma fractionation). A stainless steel blood cell separation bowl, developed in the early 1950s, was the earhest blood cell separator. A disposable polycarbonate version of the separation device, now known as the Haemonetics Latham bowl for its inventor, was first used to collect platelets from a blood donor in 1971. Another cell separation rotor was developed to faciUtate white cell collections. This donut-shaped rotor has evolved to the advanced separation chamber of the COBE Spectra apheresis machine. 

Primary blood components iaclude plasma, red blood cells (erythrocytes), white blood cells (leukocytes), platelets (thrombocytes), and stem cells. Plasma consists of water dissolved proteias, ie, fibrinogen, albumins, and globulins coagulation factors and nutrients. The principal plasma-derived blood products are siagle-donor plasma (SDP), produced by sedimentation from whole blood donations fresh frozen plasma (FFP), collected both by apheresis and from whole blood collections cryoprecipitate, produced by cryoprecipitation of FFP albumin, collected through apheresis and coagulation factors, produced by fractionation from FFP and by apheresis (see Fractionation, blood-plasma fractionation). 

When most lipids circulate in the body, they do so in the form of lipoprotein complexes. Simple, unesterified fatty acids are merely bound to serum albumin and other proteins in blood plasma, but phospholipids, triacylglycerols, cholesterol, and cholesterol esters are all transported in the form of lipoproteins. At various sites in the body, lipoproteins interact with specific receptors and enzymes that transfer or modify their lipid cargoes. It is now customary to classify lipoproteins according to their densities (Table 25.1). The densities are... 

A major contribution of the free-radical scavenging activity in blood plasma is attributable to the macro-molecular proteins (Wayner et al., 1985) of which albumin is a primary component and trapping agertt (Holt et al., 1984). Serum sulphydryl levels, primarily albumin-related, are decreased in subjects with rheumatoid complicated coalworkers pneumoconiosis, indicative of exacerbated inflammatory R.OM production (Thomas and Evans, 1975). Experimental asbestos inhalation in rats leads to an adaptive but evidendy insufficient response by an increase in endogenous antioxidant enzymes (Janssen etal., 1990). Protection of the vascular endothelium against iron-mediated ROM generation and injury is afforded by the iron sequestiant protein ferritin (Balia et al., 1992). 

Some dmgs are bound to plasma proteins in blood. Plasma protein levels in blood may be decreased in the elderly, but this is most often not clinically relevant since a drug s elimination increases when the free, unbound drug concentration is enhanced (Turnheim 1998). The plasma albumin level may however be markedly decreased in elderly suffering from malnutrition or severe disease. For those patients the concentration of the free unbound drug can reach toxic levels (Waiter-Sack and Klotz 1996). 

Serum albumin is the most abundant protein in blood plasma. Its primary function is to control the colloidal osmotic pressure in blood, but is also important for its buffering capacity and for its ability to transport fatty acids and bilirubin, as well as xenobiotic molecules. The physiological implications of its esterase-like activity are unknown (see Sect. 3.7.5). 

Some 100 different proteins occur in human blood plasma. Based on their behavior during electrophoresis (see below), they are broadly divided into five fractions albumins and ai-, tt2-, P- and y-globulins. Historically, the distinction between the albumins and globulins was based on differences in the proteins solubility -albumins are soluble in pure water, whereas globulins only dissolve in the presence of salts. 

Most lipids are barely soluble in water, and many have amphipathic properties. In the blood, free triacylglycerols would coalesce into drops that could cause fat embolisms. By contrast, amphipathic lipids would be deposited in the blood cells membranes and would dissolve them. Special precautions are therefore needed for lipid transport in the blood. While long-chain fatty acids are bound to albumin and short-chain ones are dissolved in the plasma (see p. 276), other lipids are transported in lipoprotein complexes, of which there several types in the blood plasma, with different sizes and composition. 

Prior to inclusion of hemosorption in therapy, all patients were in a poor condition due to severe endogenous intoxication and circulatory injury. 376 patients had a stable blood circulation and 64 had a reduced circulation of the blood. All patients had dynamic ileus, and 88 patients had acute multiple organ failure. A special feature of biochemical alterations was imbalance of the protease-inhibitor system. It was manifested in a significant elevation of TLA in blood plasma (P< 0.001) and decrease of a -PI and a -M concentrations (P< 0.001). The decrease of total protein and albumin, and the increase of urea and MM levels (P<0.001) were also characteristic for protein metabolism injury. 

Serum albumin is a natural transporter of hydrophobic metabolites it binds toxic ligands reversibly, and if the ligand can be removed from the complex then the melting curve of unloaded albumin should return to that of pure protein. However this remains a difficult task, and neither exhaustive dialysis, nor the use of conventional carbonic sorbents, influence the shape of melting curves of albumin isolated from blood plasma of uremic patients and patients with hepatic insufficiency (Fig. 29.3) [9]. 

Figure 29.10 displays notable normalization of melting curves of albumin after purifieation of blood plasma of uremie patients (a) and patients with liver cirrhosis (b), with the deliganding sorbent HSGD. 

Several mechanisms have evolved to prevent this catastrophe. In bacteria and plants, the plasma membrane is surrounded by a nonexpandable cell wall of sufficient rigidity and strength to resist osmotic pressure and prevent osmotic lysis. Certain freshwater protists that live in a highly hypotonic medium have an organelle (contractile vacuole) that pumps water out of the cell. In multicellular animals, blood plasma and interstitial fluid (the extracellular fluid of tissues) are maintained at an osmolarity close to that of the cytosol. The high concentration of albumin and other proteins in blood plasma contributes to its osmolarity. Cells also actively pump out ions such as Na+ into the interstitial fluid to stay in osmotic balance with their surroundings. 

In vertebrates, free fatty acids (unesterified fatty acids, with a free carboxylate group) circulate in the blood bound noncovalently to a protein carrier, serum albumin. However, fatty acids are present in blood plasma mostly as carboxylic acid derivatives such as esters or amides. Lacking the charged carboxylate group, these fatty acid derivatives are generally even less soluble in water than are the free fatty acids. 

Bovine Serum Albumin. Since Polis et al. (1950) crystallized bovine serum albumin from whey and demonstrated that it was identical in all properties investigated to blood serum albumin, except in its electrophoretic behavior at pH 4.0, very little work has been done on this protein as isolated from milk. However, much work has been done on the protein isolated from bovine blood plasma. There is considerable evidence that serum albumin is heterogeneous. For example, Spencer and King (1971) have demonstrated several protein bands by electrophoretic focusing, with two major isoelectric components differing by one unit of charge. The chemical nature of this difference is not known. 

From potentiometric and spectroscopic studies it is concluded that the main species at neutral pH is a 1 1 tridentate chelate (11) with a log stability constant of ca. — 4. The claim55 that the stability of this species is comparable to that of the Cu(albumin) complex is rather surprising, since for this to occur the involvement of a histidine in the third amino add position is normally required, and furthermore others have concluded that in blood plasma at least the tripeptide is unlikely to compete against other ligands for the available Cu11.56,57 To illustrate the point that such conclusions from blood plasma simulations are only applicable to that medium, Pickart and Thaler58 have shown that in a cell culture medium the tripeptide considerably enhanced Cu uptake into cells and that this was not affected by a 300-fold molar excess of amino adds, including histidine. 

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