Summary
1. A circulating anticoagulant in a suspected case of lupus erythematosus has been
highly purified by a combination of Sephadex gel filtration and DEAE cellulose chromatography.
2. The inhibitor is a gamma globulin with a sedimentation coefficient of 6.6 Svedberg
units.
3. For its anticoagulant action, the lupus inhibitor requires a co-factor which is
present both in the lupus and normal blood.
4. The cofactor is located in the gamma globulins fraction which is relatively heat
stable, but less than the inhibitor, at 56° C.
5. The active lupus inhibitor (inhibitor + cofactor) is not species specific against
human prothrombin.
6. Working with highly purified systems, the active inhibitor is found to inhibit
prothrombin conversion by formed prothrombin activator. It does not appear to inhibit
the formation of prothrombin activator nor does it affect purified prothrombin.