Summary
Viper venoms contain a variety of platelet binding proteins including those which
bind to platelet GPIb/GPIX. Most of these proteins inhibit von Willebrand factor mediated
platelet agglutination. Here we report the primary structures of unique members of
this family, alboaggregins A and B, isolated from Trimeresurus albolabris, which have the ability to stimulate platelet agglutination and aggregation. Four
chains of alboaggregin A and two chains of alboaggregin B share a high degree of homology
and all cysteines in both alboaggregins are conserved. Both alboaggregins caused similar
agglutination of fixed platelets. Alboaggregin A induced platelet aggregation and
release reaction with EC50 = 10 and 30 nM, respectively, which is 20-fold lower than those for alboaggregin
B. These observations suggest that the dimeric structure of alboaggregin B is sufficient
to mediate its binding to GPIb and induce agglutination of platelets whereas aggregation
and release reaction are significantly enhanced by tetrameric structure of alboaggregin
A.