Detection of Fibrinogenolysis by Measurement of Fibrinopeptide Bβ1-42

We evaluated a method for assessing fibrinogenolysis in which Bβ 1-42 peptide (Bβ 1-42) was measured by enzyme immunoassay using a monoclonal antibody against Bβ 1-42. Bβ 1-42 obtained from plasmic-digestion of fibriongen and des A fibrinmonomer in vitro specifically reacted in this assay. Smaller peptides from Bβ 1-42 and subjected to further digestion lost their reactivities. However all peptide fractions obtained by serial plasmicdigestion of crosslinked fibrin showed little crossreactivities. Also no reaction was observed with purified Bβ 15-42 peptide in this assay. Plasma Bβ 1-42 levels in 14 normal subjects were below 6pmol/ml. In randomly selected samples from 58 patients with accelerated fibrinolysis, the Bβ 1-42 levels widely varied from 2 to 234pmol/ml, but 27 of them showed considerably high levels. In these samples, Bβ 1-42 levels showed no correlations with fibrinogen, fibrinopeptide A levels, antithrombin III, plasminogen or α2PI activity. However Bβ 1-42 levels correlated with FDP-E (r=0.33, p