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Oral
therapy with proteolytic enzymes decreases excessive TGF-beta levels in human
blood
Desser
L, Holomanova D, Zavadova E, Pavelka K, Mohr T, Herbacek I
Institute
of Cancer Research, University of Vienna, Austria.
ldesser@hotmail.com
Therapy
with oral proteolytic enzymes (OET) with combination drug products containing
papain, bromelain, trypsin, and chymotrypsin has been shown to be beneficial in
clinical settings such as radiotherapy-induced fibrosis, bleomycin
pneumotoxicity and immunosuppression in cancer, all of which are nowadays known
to be accompanied by excessive transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta)
production.
It has been demonstrated that proteolytic enzymes reduce TGF-beta levels in
serum by converting the protease inhibitor alpha2 macroglobulin (alpha2M) from
the "slow" form into the "fast" form, whereby the
"fast" form binds and inactivates TGF-beta irreversibly.
In this study we have investigated the effect of OET on the concentration of
TGF-beta1 in serum of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) (n = 38),
osteomyelofibrosis (OMF) (n = 7) and herpes zoster (HZ) (n = 7).
Seventy-eight healthy volunteers served as controls.
TGF-beta1 levels in serum were assessed by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay
(ELISA).
We have demonstrated that in healthy volunteers and in patients there exists a
correlation between active and latent TGF-beta1 in serum (r=0.8021;
P<0.0001).
Treatment with OET had no significant effect on TGF-beta1 concentration in
healthy volunteers or patients with a normal level of TGF-beta1.
In patients with elevated TGF-beta1 concentration (> 50 ng/ml serum), OET
reduced TGF-beta1 in RA (P < 0.005), in OMF (P < 0.05) and in HZ (P <
0.05).
Conclusion.
These results support the concept that OET is beneficial in diseases
characterized in part by TGF-beta1 overproduction.
PMID: 11561866 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
Source:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11561866&dopt=Abstract
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