Summary
Vascular occlusion, thromboembolism and strokes are hallmark events in sickle cell
disease (SCD). The von Willebrand factor (VWF), largest adhesive protein in circulation,
has been implicated as major component in these processes. In SCD, a high level of
extracellular haemoglobin (Hb) in plasma has been shown parallely associated with
the disease pathogenesis. Investigating the effect of Hb we observed that purified
Hb significantly inhibited the ADAMTS-13 cleavage of VWF under static and flow conditions.
Hb bound potently to VWF specifically VWFA2 in a saturation-dependent manner with
half-maximal binding 24 nM. Inversely, VWFA2 also bound potently to Hb and binding
was inhibited by VP1 antibody, which binds to ADAMTS-13 cleavage site on VWF. Microscopic
observation also shows that Hb bound specifically to endothelial VWF under flow. Furthermore,
the Hb-bound VWF multimers were isolated from plasma. Though, Hb bound also to ADAMTS-13,
it is the Hb binding to VWFA2 that prevented the substrate being cleaved by ADAMTS-13.
In an observation in a small pool of patients with SCD, high Hb in plasma was inversely
correlated with low proteolytic activity of ADAMTS-13. Thus, the observations suggest
that the patients with SCD suffer from an acquired ADAMTS-13 deficiency primarily
because Hb competitively bound and blocked the proteolysis of VWF, leading to the
accumulation of ultra-large VWF multimers in circulation and on endothelium. Therefore,
the Hb-VWF interaction may be considered as a therapeutic target for treating thrombotic
and vaso-occlusive complications in patients with severe intravascular haemolysis
such as those with SCD.
Keywords
Extracellular haemoglobin - von Willebrand factor - ADAMTS-13 activity - sickle cell
disease