Renal calculi-urate as a urokinase inhibitor.

The formation of renal calculi is one of the most widely studied urinary ailments. Spectrophotometric analysis of urinary inhibition on the urokinase/plasmin system revealed a significant difference between subjects with and without renal calculi (P less than 0.001). The percentage urokinase/plasmin inhibition in the two groups was 77.1% for those with, and 47.1% for those without renal calculi. Because of the significant (P less than 0.015) positive correlation (r = 0.762) between the percentage inhibition of urokinase/plasmin and urinary urate concentration, the inhibition of urate on urokinase/plasmin and on plasmin and urokinase was investigated. The urokinase/plasmin system was inhibited up to 94.4% with 0.5 mM urate. Inhibition occurred with both low and high molecular weight urokinases. In order to determine which enzyme of the complex was inhibited, each was investigated independently and a 50% inhibition of urokinase activity was obtained with 4 mM urate. It was found that the urine of stone formers contained a higher concentration of urate than the urine of healthy subjects and that at the same time there was a decrease in urinary urokinase activity in these patients.