How Na+ activates thrombin – a review of the functional and structural data
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James A. Huntington
Abstract
Thrombin is the ultimate coagulation factor; it is the final protease generated in the blood coagulation cascade and is the effector of clot formation. Regulation of thrombin activity is thus of great relevance to determining the correct haemostatic balance, with dysregulation leading to bleeding or thrombosis. One of the most enigmatic and controversial regulators of thrombin activity is the monovalent cation Na+. When bound to Na+, thrombin adopts a ‘fast’ conformation which cleaves all procoagulant substrates more rapidly, and when free of Na+, thrombin reverts to a ‘slow’ state which preferentially activates the protein C anticoagulant pathway. Thus, Na+-binding allosterically modulates the activity of thrombin and helps determine the haemostatic balance. Over the last 30 years, there has been much research investigating the structural basis of thrombin allostery. Biochemical and mutagenesis studies established which regions and residues are involved in the slow→fast conformational change, and recently several crystal structures of the putative slow form have been solved. In this article, the biochemical and crystallographic data are reviewed to see if we are any closer to understanding the conformational basis of the Na+ activation of thrombin.
©2008 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin New York
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Artikel in diesem Heft
- Editors' Note
- Editors' Note
- Editorial
- Farewell to Hans Fritz, Executive Editor
- Guest Editorial
- Highlight on Advances in Proteolysis Research
- Highlight: 5th General Meeting of the International Proteolysis Society 2007
- Proteinases as hormones: targets and mechanisms for proteolytic signaling
- Glutaminyl cyclases from animals and plants: a case of functionally convergent protein evolution
- Alternative pathways for production of β-amyloid peptides of Alzheimer's disease
- Bauhinia Kunitz-type proteinase inhibitors: structural characteristics and biological properties
- Angiotensin-converting enzyme limits inflammation elicited by Trypanosoma cruzi cysteine proteases: a peripheral mechanism regulating adaptive immunity via the innate kinin pathway
- How Na+ activates thrombin – a review of the functional and structural data
- Cancer cells, adipocytes and matrix metalloproteinase 11: a vicious tumor progression cycle
- Isoaspartate residues dramatically influence substrate recognition and turnover by proteases
- Isoaspartate-containing amyloid precursor protein-derived peptides alter efficacy and specificity of potential β-secretases
- Trial of the cysteine cathepsin inhibitor JPM-OEt on early and advanced mammary cancer stages in the MMTV-PyMT-transgenic mouse model
- Metastasis-associated C4.4A, a GPI-anchored protein cleaved by ADAM10 and ADAM17
- Intestine-specific expression of green fluorescent protein-tagged cathepsin B: proof-of-principle experiments
- Substrate specificity determination of mouse implantation serine proteinase and human kallikrein-related peptidase 6 by phage display
- In vivo analysis reveals substrate-gating mutants of a rhomboid intramembrane protease display increased activity in living cells
- Human monocytes augment invasiveness and proteolytic activity of inflammatory breast cancer
- Regulation of cathepsin K activity by hydrogen peroxide
- Protein Structure and Function
- Contribution of the C30/C75 disulfide bond to the biological properties of onconase
- Conformational changes in bovine lactoferrin induced by slow or fast temperature increases
