Clinical Significance
The heparin:PF4 complex is the antigen in heparin-induced thrombocytopenia, an idiosyncratic autoimmune reaction to the administration of the anticoagulant heparin. PF4 autoantibodies have also been found in patients with thrombosis and features resembling HIT but no prior administration of heparin.
The human platelet factor 4 kills malaria parasites within erythrocytes by selectively lysing the parasite's digestive vacuole.
Read more about this topic: Platelet Factor 4
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“The hypothesis I wish to advance is that ... the language of morality is in ... grave disorder.... What we possess, if this is true, are the fragments of a conceptual scheme, parts of which now lack those contexts from which their significance derived. We possess indeed simulacra of morality, we continue to use many of the key expressions. But we have—very largely if not entirely—lost our comprehension, both theoretical and practical, of morality.”
—Alasdair Chalmers MacIntyre (b. 1929)