Blood Coagulation Inhibitor in a Snake Plasma (Bothrops jararaca)

Experiments with plasmas samples from the snake B. jararaca and X. merremii have shown that the two differ markedly with respect to their reaction to bovine thrombin. The plasma of X. merremii appears to react in a manner very similar to that of normal human plasma both using the thrombin clotting test and using the antithrombin III assay of Astrup and Darling (Biggs and Macfariane 1962). The plasma of B. jararaca on the other hand, contains, in addition to antithrombin III, an inhibitor which resembles mammalian heparin. This inhibitor prolongs the thrombin clotting time of human and X. merremii plasmas, is recorded by the antithrombin assay and is neutralized by protamine. The inhibitor is however, not identical with mammalian heparin since it is not adsorbed by BaSO4 and Al(OH)3 (which adsorb heparin) and it is heat labil whereas mammalian heparin is heat stable.