Further evidence for the induction of proteolysis by coumarin in rats with various high protein oedemas

Coumarin can induce lysis of tracer proteins injected into animals with normal limbs as well as in those with various high-protein edemas. Although this experiment greatly underestimates proteolysis, burn treated groups showed a significant increase in protein fragments of both body and limbs. Although the reverse was the case for the group with lymphedema and for the group with lymphedema in combination with burn, the results could be explained by incorporation of the fragments into protein not precipitable with trichloroacetic acid (TCA) in the maturing phagocytes of the lesion. Coumarin alone cannot induce this proteolysis, it needs the tissues and its cells.