title: The compact domain conformation of human Glu-plasminogen in solution.
abstract: A complete understanding of the accelerating mechanisms of plasminogen activation and fibrinolysis necessarily requires structural information on the conformational forms of plasminogen. Given the absence of high-resolution structural data on plasminogen the use of lower resolution approaches has been adopted. Two such approaches have previously indicated a compact conformation of Glu-plasminogen (Tranqui, L., Prandini, M., and Chapel, A. (1979) Biol. Cellulaire, 34, 39-42; Bányai, L. and Patthy, L. (1985) Biochim. Biophys. Acta, 832, 224-227) whereas a third has suggested a fairly extended conformation (Mangel, W., Lin, B. and Ramakrishnan, V. (1990) Science, 248, 69-73). Native Glu-plasminogen has been investigated using small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) experiments. It is concluded that this molecule in solution is compact (radius of gyration, RG 3.05 +/- 0.02 nm and maximum intramolecular distance, Im 9.1 +/- 0.3 nm) and that the data are consistent with the right-handed spiral structure observed using electron microscopy by Tranqui et al. (1979). A spiral structure of native plasminogen would have important implications for the conformational response of plasminogen to fibrin and concomitant stimulation of plasminogen activation.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Molecular Biophysics, University of Oxford, Department of Biochemistry, UK.
authors.forename: C P
authors.initials: CP
authors.lastname: Ponting
authors.forename: S K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Holland
authors.forename: S A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Cederholm-Williams
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Marshall
authors.forename: A J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Brown
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Spraggon
authors.forename: C C
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Blake
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D006801:Humans; D008958:Models, Molecular; D010958:Plasminogen / Q000737:chemistry*; D011487:Protein Conformation; D012542:Scattering, Radiation; D012996:Solutions
chemical_list: D012996:Solutions; D010958:Plasminogen