Biophysical Journal 60: 70-80 (1991)
© 1991 the Biophysical Society

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Fourier transform infrared spectroscopic study of Ca2+ and membrane-induced secondary structural changes in bovine prothrombin and prothrombin fragment 1.

Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill 27599-7260.

ABSTRACT

Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy was used to monitor secondary structural changes associated with binding of bovine prothrombin and prothrombin fragment 1 to acidic lipid membranes. Prothrombin and prothrombin fragment 1 were examined under four different conditions: in the presence of (a) Na2EDTA, (b) 5 mM CaCl2, and in the presence of CaCl2 plus membranes containing 1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-3-sn-phosphatidylcholine (POPC) in combination with either (c) bovine brain phosphatidyl-serine (bovPS) or (d) 1,2-dioleoyl-phosphatidylglycerol (DOPG). The widely reported Ca(2+)-induced conformational change in bovine prothrombin fragment 1 was properly detected by our procedures, although Ca(2+)-induced changes in whole prothrombin spectra were too small to be reliably interpreted. Binding of prothrombin in the presence of Ca2+ to procoagulant POPC/bovPS small unilamellar vesicles produced an increase in ordered secondary structures (2% and 3% increases in alpha-helix and beta-sheet, respectively) and a decrease of random structure (5%) as revealed by spectral analysis on both the original and Fourier-self-deconvolved data and by difference spectroscopy with the undeconvolved spectra. Binding to POPC/DOPG membranes, which are less active as procoagulant membranes, produced no detectable changes in secondary structure. In addition, no change in prothrombin fragment 1 secondary structure was detectable upon binding to either POPC/bovPS or POPC/DOPG membranes. This indicates that a membrane-induced conformational change occurs in prothrombin in the nonmembrane-binding portion of the molecule, part of which is activated to form thrombin, rather than in the membrane-binding fragment 1 region. The possible significance of this conformational change is discussed in terms of differences between the procoagulant activities of different acidic lipid membranes.