| Research Abstract |
The acute-phase response is a biophylactic reaction at an early stage against infection, tissue injury, neoplastic growth, or immunological disorders. Some plasma proteins as acute-phase proteins change characteristically with the acute-phase response following inflammatory stimuli.
In this study, equine acute-phase reactive proteins, alpha_2-macroglobulin (alpha_2MG), alpha_1-acid glycoprotein(alpha_1AG), ceruloplasmin(CP), C-reactive protein (CRP), haptoglobin(HG), serum acid soluble protein(ASP) and serum amyoid A protein(SAA) were isolated, purified and characterized, and objective measurments of them in equine serum were established. Then, serum concentrations of them were determined in normal horses with aging and in mares during perinatal period. In horses with experimentally induced inflammation, SAA showed the earliest reaction against inflammatory stimuli, and its concentration increased to several ten times the pre-treatment value on the 2nd day after treatment. alpha_1AG was
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the next to increase, 1.5 to 2 times the pre-treatment values on the 2nd to 3rd day, followed by CRP which increased 5 to 6 times on the 3rd to 4th day. HG was elevated 1.5 to 9 times on the 4th to 5th day, and ASP increased to 1.8 to 1.9 times on the 5th day. The response of CP was slow, its concentration increasing 1.5 to 2 times on the 6th to 7th day. Equine alpha_2MG was not an acute-phase reactive protein. Though sera from horses with clinical signs of inflammation were collected without noting the clinical stage or conditions of the disease in this study, SAA concentrations in most clinical cases tested were statistically high compared with the normal value. In addition, these clinical cases showed high SAA concentration to be dominant compared to other acute-phase proteins, alpha_1AG, CRP, HG, ASP and CP. At this point there is no explanation for the differences in response time for each protein, so detailed investigation of the functions of each protein is necessary.
In the present results, the response of SAA was the most sensitive and increased to a greater level than other acute-reactive proteins. Equine SAA was therefore concluded to be the most sensitive acute-phase reactive protein because of the increased levels seen with acute inflammation. Less
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