Summary
The design of small chimeric thrombin inhibitors based on the structure of dipetalogastin
II has been previously described. These proteins are effective inhibitors of thrombin
showing slow binding or slow, tight-binding kinetics. We report here about dipetacompinR10H,
a new dipetalogastin II-derived chimeric thrombin inhibitor, which exhibits classical
competitive kinetics. The dissociation constant Ki of dipetacompinR10H was determined to be 17.1 ± 0.8 pM. In various coagulation assays
it showed a comparable anticoagulant activity like r-hirudin and r-dipetalogastin
II. DipetacompinR10H’s inhibition of thrombin was specific, since no inhibition of
other serine proteases like factor Xa, plasmin, trypsin or chymotrypsin has been observed.
Keywords
Thrombin inhibitor - Dipetalogastin - rational drug design - chimeric protein - classical
competitive kinetics