Work

A model of fibrin formation based on crystal structures of fibrinogen and fibrin fragments complexed with synthetic peptides

Year: 2000

Type: article

Abstract: A blood clot is a meshwork of fibrin fibers built up by the systematic assembly of fibrinogen molecules proteolyzed by thrombin. Here, we describe a model of how the assembly process occurs. Five kinds of interaction are explicitly defined, including two different knob-hole interactions, an end-to-end association between gamma-chains, a lateral association between gamma-chains, and a hypothetical lateral interaction between beta-chains. The last two of these interactions are responsible for protofibril association and are predicated on intermolecular packing arrangements observed in crystal structures of fibrin double-D fragments cocrystallized with synthetic peptides corresponding to the knobs exposed by the release of the fibrinopeptides A and B.

Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.97.26.14156

Authors: Zhe Yang, Igor Mochalkin, Russell F. Doolittle

Institutions: University of California San Diego, BIOVIA

Language: English

Topic: Blood properties and coagulation

Subfield: Hematology

Field: Medicine

Domain: Health Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funders: National Institutes of Health, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute

Awards: G1975894160, Structural Studies on Fibrinogen and Fibrin