However, the anti-complement effect needs only be local (i.e. in the immediate proximity of the mouth parts and midgut epithelium), and this drastically reduces the amount of complement to be neutralized.
Also in our study, a relatively larger amount of complement was required for full CDC activity in RC-K8 cells.
The amount of complement activation is correlated with the color intensity and is measured in terms of absorbance, and then the combination of the levels of the three activities can indicate the deficient components.
To determine whether there is a link between the amount of LAM and the amount of complement activation in the nerves of paucibacillary and multibacillary leprosy patients, we tested whether there is a correlation between the extent of C9 staining and the extent of LAM staining in corresponding nerve areas.
HEK cells were found to express significant amounts of complement regulator proteins, CD55, CD59 and CD46 during the initial experiments.
Alternatively, others have suggested that MAC formation rarely occurs on endothelium, as EC express high amounts of complement inhibitory receptors (31, 32).
Far lower amounts of complement proteins are found inside the eye, even when the eye is inflamed due to infection [ 39, 40].
Small amounts of complement component C3 are activated in uninjured kidney but complement regulatory proteins, such as factor H, MCP (CD46) and DAF (CD55), inhibit any further activation of the complement cascade [ 4- 8].
Interestingly, we observed that copious amounts of complement products are fixed by nucleic acids but not other negatively charged molecules in SLE patients with decreased complement C4 levels (and manuscript in preparation), which finally led us to formulate the hypothesis presented below.
Rather, the total amount of genome complements, i.e. less than diploid, is expected to induce the apoptotic response.
