MODE OF ACTION OF CHYMOTRYPSIN ON PLEURAL INFLAMMATION

¹ Department of Chemistry, Northwestern University Dental School, Chicago, Illinois

Inflammatory edema was experimentally induced by injecting a mildly irritating solution into the pleural cavity of rats. Reduction in the pleural volume was taken as the measure of the anti-inflammatory activity of a compound tested. Chymotrypsin was found to reduce experimental pleural edema very effectively. The dose-response relationship to chymotrypsin was studied. The changes in pleural volume, protein concentration and dye concentration at different time intervals during pleural inflammation were measured in the chymotrypsin-treated rats. Electrophoresis of serum proteins revealed that albumin and gamma-globulin percentages decreased and alpha- and beta-globulin fraction increased in the serum of chymotrypsin-treated rats. Isolation of different proteins from the serum of the treated rats was done. Anti-inflammatory activity of these fractions was tested. Mucoproteins, albumin, gamma-globulin and protein free filtrate of serum were found to be inactive. The mixture of alpha- and beta-globulins had anti-inflammatory activity.