Historical Background
Complement was first described more than 100 years ago, and since then, findings and controversies have arisen that resulted in the discovery of the components that participate in each pathway of the complement system (alternative, classical, and lectin). It was widely accepted during the 1950s that microbial targets could only be lysed by a mixture of heat-sensitive components of human serum and antibodies, which we now know as the classical pathway (CP). During the same time, the first evidences of an “alternative” pathway capable of activating the complement system on targets without the presence of antibodies emerged. In 1954, Louis Pillemer and collaborators proposed that properdin acted as an initiator of alternative pathway (AP) activity, becoming what was called the “properdin system” (Pillemer et al. 1954). The discovery of this molecule was a major breakthrough in...
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Dersch, A.M., Lamas-Basulto, E., Cortes, C. (2018). CFP (Complement Factor Properdin). In: Choi, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of Signaling Molecules. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67199-4_101783
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