부산대학교 도서관

The molecular basis of serpin polymerization The serpins are a family of proteins that can multimerize via β-sheet linkages. Accumulation of such multimers can give rise to diseases such as thrombosis, cirrhosis and dementia. While the structures of many serpins are known, the structure of the linkage between monomers was unclear. In this work, Huntington and colleagues have solved the crystal structure of an antithrombin dimer. They find that the high stability of the serpin polymer is due to a large domain swap between beta sheets of the neighbouring monomers. In addition, the structure explains the how certain pathogenic mutations stabilize a polymerogenic folding intermediate.