EN
Aprotinin - a proteinase inhibitor, is a polipeptyde found in bovine organs. For commercial purposes it is isolated only from bovine lungs, pancreas or parotid glands. Aprotinin is widely used as a valuable tool for studying protein/protein interactions and protein conformation at the molecular level. It has also become a valuable drug for the treatment of various diseases, e.g. hyperfibrinolytic hemorrhage, traumatic-hemorrhagic shock and acute pancreatitis. The purpose of these studies was to determine the changes of aprotinin activity in bovine lungs during frozen (-12 and -28°C for 14 months) and chilling (4°C for 17 days) storage. In the latter, half of the raw material was pre-stored in -28°C for 1 month. The photometric assay was made to determine aprotinin activity which was then measured using kallikrein inactivator units (KIU). It has been found that neither frozen nor chilling storage reduce the inhibitor activity. The growth of tissue extractibility was also observed as a result of the freezing process, causing an increase of aprotinin activity in analysed samples.