ristocetin
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Ristocetin is a glycopeptide antibiotic, obtained from Amycolatopsis lurida, previously used to treat staphylococcal infections. It is no longer used clinically because it caused thrombocytopenia and platelet agglutination. It is now used solely to assay those functions in vitro in the diagnosis of conditions such as von Willebrand disease (vWD) and Bernard–Soulier syndrome. Platelet agglutination caused by ristocetin can occur only in the presence of von Willebrand factor multimers, so if ristocetin is added to blood lacking the factor (or its receptor—see below), the platelets will not clump
Research
3,465 papers- RISTOCETIN.Quarterly review of pediatrics · 1958
- RISTOCETIN.Journal of the American Medical Association · 1958
- Polymyxins, colistin, bacitracin, ristocetin and vancomycin.Pediatric clinics of North America · 1968
- [Ristocetin].La Clinica terapeutica · 1959
- [Ristocetin].Pediatria · 1961
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Encyclopedic overview
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Ristocetin is a glycopeptide antibiotic, obtained from Amycolatopsis lurida, previously used to treat staphylococcal infections. It is no longer used clinically because it caused thrombocytopenia and platelet agglutination. It is now used solely to assay those functions in vitro in the diagnosis of conditions such as von Willebrand disease (vWD) and Bernard–Soulier syndrome. Platelet agglutination caused by ristocetin can occur only in the presence of von Willebrand factor multimers, so if ristocetin is added to blood lacking the factor (or its receptor—see below), the platelets will not clump.
Through an unknown mechanism, the antibiotic ristocetin causes von Willebrand factor to bind the platelet receptor glycoprotein Ib (GpIb), so when ristocetin is added to normal blood, it causes agglutination.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “ristocetin” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.