For the purification of the abnormal prothrombin (Pt Metz), advantage has been taken of the existence in the family of three siblings who, being double heterozygotes for Pt Metz and a hypoprothrombinemia, have no normal Pt. Purification procedures included barium citrate adsorption and chromatography on DEAE Sephadex as for normal Pt. As opposed to some other variants (Pt Barcelona and Madrid), Pt Metz elutes as a single symetrical peak. By SDS polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, this material is homogeneous and appears to have the same molecular weight as normal Pt. Comigration of normal and abnormal Pt in the absence of SDS, shows a double band suggesting an abnormal charge for the variant. Pt Metz exhibits an identity reaction with the control by double immunodiffusion. Upon activation by factor Xa, Pt Metz can generate amydolytic activity on Bz-Phe-Val-Arg-pNa (S2160), but only a very low clotting activity. Clear abnormalities are observed in the cleavage pattern of Pt Metz when monitored by SDS gel electrophoresis. The main feature are the accumulation of prethrombin l (Pl) and the appearance of abnormal intermediates migrating faster than Pl.
A vectorized sequence-coupling model for predicting HIV protease cleavage sites in proteins
