Three members of the ficolin family of proteins have been described in humans, such as L-ficolin (or ficolin-2), H-ficolin (or ficolin-3 or Hakata antigen), and M-ficolin (or ficolin-1) [16-19].
L-ficolin is an oligomeric protein consisting of 35kDa subunits [22, 27].
Although the protein binds to GlcNAc, its affinity seems to be very weak compared with that of L-ficolin [34].
This year, some clinical data have been associated with L-ficolin deficiency and parasite infections.
showed lower L-ficolin concentrations in patients with bronchiectasis compared to healthy blood donors [105].
Sim, "Recognition of acetylated oligosaccharides by human L-ficolin," Immunology Letters, vol.
We used sandwich ELISA methods to measure H-ficolin, L-ficolin, and mannose-binding lectin (MBL) concentrations in plasma samples.
For ficolin and Fas double staining, sections were incubated in TBS-T with normal sheep serum with either monoclonal antibodies to Fas (B-10) and to H-ficolin (clone 4H5) or to rabbit polyclonal L-ficolin antibody (clone 2F5).
By tryptic peptide fingerprinting analysis, we confirmed that the identities of the 2 peptides were Hakata antigen and hucolin, known as H-ficolin and L-ficolin, respectively (Fig.
H-ficolin, L-ficolin, and MBLs were found to be maintained at very low concentrations (-3-5 mg/L) in healthy adults (8), but there is no previous report concerning lectin activity in normal pregnancies or pregnancies complicated by preeclampsia.
We confirmed that maternal plasma concentrations of H-ficolin and L-ficolin were significantly lower in preeclamptic pregnancies (n = 20) than in uncomplicated pregnancies (Fig.