An alternative term for alexin; an immune substance that protects against pathogens.
A variant spelling of alexin, from Greek alexein. Both -in and -ine endings were used interchangeably in early biochemical terminology to describe protective substances.
The confusion between 'alexin' and 'alexine' in older medical texts shows how young the science of immunology really is—scientists were still debating how to name these mysterious protective molecules they barely understood.
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