A detailed consideration of a principal domain of vertebrate fibrinogen and its relatives

Abstract

Vertebrate fibrinogen is a complex multidomained protein, the structure of which has been inferred mainly from electron microscopy and amino acid sequence studies. Among its most prominent features are two terminal globules, moieties that are mostly composed of the carboxyl-terminal two-thirds of the beta and gamma chains. Sequences homologous to the latter segments are found in several other animal proteins, always as the carboxyl-terminal contributions. An alignment of 15 amino acid sequences from various fibrinogens and related proteins has been used to make judgments about secondary structure. The nature of amino acids at each position in the alignment was used to distinguish alpha helices and beta structure on the one hand from loops and turns on the other, and the resulting assignments compared with predictions of secondary structure by other methods. Additionally, constraints imposed by the locations of cystines, carbohydrate attachment residues, and proteinase-sensitive points provided further insights into the general organization of the postulated secondary structures. Other ancillary data, including the effects of bound calcium and the locations of labeled or variant residues, were also considered. An intriguing similarity to a portion of the recently reported structure of a calcium-dependent lectin is noted.