A new congenital abnormal fibrinogen ise characterized by the replacement of Bβ glycine-15 by cysteine

Abstract

A new case of heterozygous dysfibrinogenemia characterized by the replacement of NH2-terminal amino acid of fibrin β-chain was found in a 50-year-old man. Despite a prolonged thrombin time, the propositus' fibrinogen had a normal reptilase time with the normal release of fibrinopeptide A. Release of fibrinopeptide B by thrombin was strongly affected, but a very high concentration of thrombin almost completely released fibrinopeptide B with a normal elution pattern on reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Lysylendopeptidase-cleavage of purified Bβ-chains analyzed on HPLC showed the decrease of one peptide compared with the normal and the appearance of an abnormal peptide peak. These peptides were treated with thrombin and further separated on HPLC. Amino acid sequence analysis of the abnormal peptide demonstrated that Bβ glycine-15, NH2-terminus of the fibrin β-chain, was replaced by cysteine. These findings will be of particular importance because they strongly support the hypothesis that the NH2-terminal portion of the fibrin β-chain is involved in the polymerization reaction by thrombin. The propositus' daughter and two sisters had the same abnormal fibrinogen. This unique inherited abnormal fibrinogen was designated as fibrinogen Ise. During these studies, we found that a very high concentration of thrombin cleaves not only the Aα Arg19-Val20 bond but also the COOH-terminal region of α-chains, which results in the generation of further degraded α-chains with apparent molecular weights of 44,000 or less. © 1991 by The American Society of Hematology.