The Prothrombin-Prothrombinase Interaction

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Macromolecular Protein Complexes V

Part of the book series: Subcellular Biochemistry ((SCBI,volume 104))

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Abstract

The hemostatic response to vascular injury entails a sequence of proteolytic events where several inactive zymogens of the trypsin family are converted to active proteases. The cascade starts with exposure of tissue factor from the damaged endothelium and culminates with conversion of prothrombin to thrombin in a reaction catalyzed by the prothrombinase complex composed of the enzyme factor Xa, cofactor Va, Ca2+, and phospholipids. This cofactor-dependent activation is paradigmatic of analogous reactions of the blood coagulation and complement cascades, which makes elucidation of its molecular mechanism of broad significance to the large class of trypsin-like zymogens to which prothrombin belongs. Because of its relevance as the most important reaction in the physiological response to vascular injury, as well as the main trigger of pathological thrombotic complications, the mechanism of prothrombin activation has been studied extensively. However, a molecular interpretation of this mechanism has become available only recently from important developments in structural biology. Here we review current knowledge on the prothrombin-prothrombinase interaction and outline future directions for the study of this key reaction of the coagulation cascade.

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Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge Tracey Baird for her assistance with illustrations. Katherine Basore and Brock Summers at Washington University Center for Cellular Imaging provided expert assistance with the cryo-EM work. Cassandra Kukla and Sheila Rahman were involved in early developments of this article. This study was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health Research Grants HL049413, HL139554, and HL147821.

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Correspondence to Enrico Di Cera .

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© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

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Stojanovski, B.M., Mohammed, B.M., Di Cera, E. (2024). The Prothrombin-Prothrombinase Interaction. In: Harris, J.R., Marles-Wright, J. (eds) Macromolecular Protein Complexes V. Subcellular Biochemistry, vol 104. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-58843-3_15

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