A model of fibrin formation based on crystal structures of fibrinogen and fibrin fragments complexed with synthetic peptides
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 γ-chains, a lateral association between γ-chains, and a hypothetical lateral interaction between β-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.
- Publication:
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Science
- Pub Date:
- December 2000
- DOI:
- 10.1073/pnas.97.26.14156
- Bibcode:
- 2000PNAS...9714156Y
- Keywords:
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- Biochemistry