Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: EC:3.4.24.3 (collagenase)
 18,340 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Ficolin was initially identified from porcine uterus as a TGF-beta 1 binding protein and is considered to have an overall structure similar to that of the complement protein C1q and the collectins. Recent studies have shown that human ficolin is synthesized mainly by monocytes in peripheral blood and that it could potentially bind to sugar structures on microorganisms. The aim of the present investigations was to isolate ficolin from human plasma by affinity chromatography on immobilized sugars. A human serum protein was identified in the GlcNAc eluate from GlcNAc-Sepharose which migrated as a polypeptide of approx. 40 kDa on SDS-PAGE under reducing conditions and was, after further purification by FPLC on a mono-Q column, shown to have an identical N-terminal sequence, over the first 14 residues, to P35, a plasma protein having similar sequence and domain organisation to ficolin. This protein, named the ficolin-like protein, was shown to be sensitive to collagenase and similar to P35 in that it was also disulphide-linked into an oligomer of approx. 320 kDa. However, unlike P35, its binding to GlcNAc was independent of Ca2+. Gel-filtration studies showed that this ficolin-like protein also had a molecular weight of approx. 320 kDa under non-dissociating conditions. During the course of this study this ficolin-like protein was found to simply bind to CNBr-activated Sepharose which had been inactivated with Tris, and from which it could be eluted with GlcNAc. This ficolin-like protein was also shown to bind to GlcNAc, but not to mannose and maltose. The functional significance of the unusual binding property of this ficolin-like protein is not clear, but it has facilitated the development of a simple method for its purification.
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PMID:Purification and binding properties of a human ficolin-like protein. 920 8

Ficolins are characterised by the presence of collagen-like and fibrinogen-like (FBG) sequences. Human L-ficolin is synthesised in the liver and secreted into blood circulation. In previous studies, it was shown to bind to N-acetyl-D-glucosamine (GlcNAc). In the present study, its detailed sugar specificity and binding site have been investigated. It was found to bind to GlcNAc and GalNAc (N-acetyl-D-galactosamine) while showing no significant affinity for the precursor sugars. The structure in these molecules which is recognised by L.-ficolin has been deduced to include an amide (-CO-NH-) or similar group. L-Ficolin was digested with collagenase and the collagenase resistant FBG domain was shown to bind to GlcNAc. Its levels in adult and cord blood-derived human plasma were also determined and showed that adult plasma contains approximately three times more L-ficolin than that of newborn babies.
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PMID:Human L-ficolin: plasma levels, sugar specificity, and assignment of its lectin activity to the fibrinogen-like (FBG) domain. 955 81