fibrin
(ˈfaɪbrɪn)
Formerly also fibrine, and in L. form fibrina.
[f. fibre + -in.]
1. a. Orig., an albuminoid or protein compound substance found in animal matter; coagulable lymph. In modern use, an insoluble protein, formed from fibrinogen during blood clotting, which polymerizes to give the network of the clot.
| 1800 Phil. Trans. XC. 375 The substance called fibrin by the chemists. 1802 Med. Jrnl. VIII. 297 A disposition to the formation of Fibrina. 1804 W. Nicholson tr. A. F. Fourcroy's Gen. Syst. Chem. Knowl. IX. 214 (heading) Of the fibrous Part of the Blood, or of the Fibrine. 1813 Sir H. Davy Agric. Chem. vi. (1814) 275 Fibrine constitutes the basis of the muscular fibre of animals. 1842 A. Combe Physiol. Digest. (ed. 4) 292 Fibrin is that whitish and tenacious mass which constitutes the solid part of coagulated blood. 1845 London Med. Gaz. 3rd Ser. I. 618/2 The washed clot is the substance which is usually, but very erroneously, named the fibrin of the blood. 1869 Roscoe Elem. Chem. 434 The fibrin of flesh appears to differ from that of blood. 1927 R. J. S. McDowall Clin. Physiol. xv. 147 Fibrinogen, which is converted into the fibrin of the clot. 1961 R. G. Macfarlane in Macfarlane & Robb-Smith Functions of Blood vii. 322 During the clotting of fibrinogen, the products are fibrin, which is a polymer formed by union of major residues of the fibrinogen molecules, and fibrinopeptide. 1970 Nature 14 Nov. 669 The conversion of fibrinogen to fibrin..is the last stage of the complex process of blood coagulation. |
b. A similar substance in vegetable matter.
| 1819 J. G. Children Chem. Anal. 293 Vegetable fibrin was obtained by Vauquelin from the juice of the papaw tree. 1856 Farmer's Mag. Jan. 2 We give him beans, which abound in fibrine. 1858 Carpenter Veg. Phys. §32 Gluten, fibrin, albumen, caseine, etc., form the basis of all vegetable..tissues. |
2. Comb., as
† fibrin-ferment [a. G.
fibrinferment (A. Schmidt 1872, in
Arch f. ges. Physiol. VI. 447)],
= thrombin Obs.;
fibrin film, a thin sheet of fibrin mixed with a plasticizing agent and used mainly in neurosurgery and to treat burns;
fibrin foam, a spongy preparation of fibrin used as a hæmostatic in surgery;
fibrin-peptone (see
quot.).
| 1876 Jrnl. Chem. Soc. I. 945 The author [sc. Alex Schmidt] proceeds to show..that fibrin-ferment is not a body pre-existing in the blood, which was originally in the red blood corpuscles, and only after its exit from the body passed over into the plasma. 1898, 1900 Fibrin ferment [see thrombin]. 1923 A. W. Fuller Anæmia i. 8 The blood-plasma is the fluid medium containing..fibrin-ferment, for coagulation purposes. 1951 A. Grollman Pharmacol. & Therapeutics xxviii. 633 Fibrin foam..is an effective hemostatic agent and may be left in situ. It has replaced the fibrin ferments and thromboplastic substances used previously for this purpose. |
| 1944 Ferry & Morrison in Jrnl. Clin. Invest. XXIII. 566 We shall describe these clots, as well as two kinds of derived products—the fibrin films and fibrinogen plastics—which we have developed from the same proteins. 1968 M. Gerendás in K. Laki Fibrinogen xiii. 294 In essence, fibrin film is a condensed fibrin clot in which the strands are more or less oriented. The film can be stretched and is elastic. |
| 1944 Jrnl. Neurosurg. I. 23 A spongy substance, which has been designated as ‘fibrin foam’. 1963 Brit. Pharm. Codex 955 Human Fibrin Foam is a dry artificial sponge of human fibrin. It is prepared by clotting with human thrombin a foam of a solution of human fibrinogen... Human fibrin foam is used..as a hæmostatic agent in surgery. |
| 1884 Syd. Soc. Lex., Fibrin-peptone, the peptone resulting from the digestion in gastric juice of fibrine. |