Leucocyte myeloperoxidase

Polymorphonuclear leucocytes (PMNs) employ a system comprising myeloperoxidase, hydrogen peroxide, and a halide factor to kill microorganisms and tumour cells. This process is sometimes loosely called the respiratory burst , which refers to the sudden rise in oxygen consumption by the phagocytosing neutrophils that is independent of the mitochondrial electron transport chain. 

Z4. Zgliczynski, J. M., Stelmaszynska, T., Ostrowiski, W., Naskalski, J., and Sznajd, J., Myeloperoxidase of human leukaemic leucocytes. Oxidation of amino acids in the presence of hydrogen peroxide. Eur. J. Biochem. 4, 540-547 (1968). 

Horseradish peroxidase- (Ushijima etal. 1985) or myeloperoxidase-catalysed tyrosine oxidation (Ushijima et al. 1997) accompanies light emission in the visible region. Similar chemiluminescence phenomena have been obtained during the fertilisation of sea urchin eggs, which forms bityrosine crosslinks in the egg membrane (Takahashi et al. 1989), during incubation of tyrosine-rich bamboo shoot extract with HjOj (Totsune et al. 1993), and during activation of human phagocytic leucocytes by opsonized zymosan in the presence of absence of added tyrosine (Ushijima et al. 1997). Tyrosine... 

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