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Thromb Haemost 1998; 80(05): 784-790
DOI: 10.1055/s-0037-1615359
Review Article
Schattauer GmbH

Isolation of Frog and Chicken cDNAs Encoding Heparin Cofactor II

Niall S. Colwell
1   From the Division of Hematology, Department of Internal Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
,
Douglas M. Tollefsen
1   From the Division of Hematology, Department of Internal Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
› Author Affiliations
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Publication History

Received 05 May 1998

Accepted after revision 04 August 1998

Publication Date:
07 December 2017 (online)

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Summary

Heparin cofactor II (HCII) is a serpin that inhibits thrombin rapidly in the presence of heparin or dermatan sulfate. HCII activity has been detected in human, rabbit, and mouse plasma, and cDNA clones for HCII have been isolated previously from human, rabbit, rat, and mouse liver libraries, suggesting a conserved physiologic role for HCII among mammals. In this report, we show that both frog and chicken plasma contain a dermatan sulfate-dependent inhibitor that forms a 118-kDa complex with human 125I-thrombin. Screening of frog and chicken liver cDNA libraries in bacteriophage λ with a human HCII cDNA probe yielded nearly full-length clones with inserts of 1.8 and 1.7 kb, respectively. The amino acid sequences deduced from the frog and chicken HCII cDNAs are ~60% identical to one another and to each of the mammalian sequences. In particular, the N-terminal acidic domain, the glycosaminoglycan-binding site, and the reactive site sequences are highly conserved. Our results indicate that HCII is widely distributed among vertebrates and may have a common function in birds, amphibians, and mammals.

 

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