Decades old molecular mystery of blood clotting solved

Washington, June 1 (ANI): A new research has solved the decades old molecular mystery linked to blood clotting.

University of Illinois biochemistry professor James Morrissey, who led the study with chemistry professor Chad Rienstra and biochemistry, biophysics and pharmacology professor Emad Tajkhorshid report that they are the first to describe in atomic detail a chemical interaction that is vital to blood clotting.

This interaction - between a clotting factor and a cell membrane - has baffled scientists for decades.

"For decades, people have known that blood-clotting proteins have to bind to a cell membrane in order for the clotting reaction to happen," said James Morrissey.

"If you take clotting factors off the membrane, they're thousands of times less active."

"This is the first real insight at an atomic level of how most of the blood-clotting proteins interact with membranes, an interaction that's known to be essential to blood clotting," Morrissey said.

The findings offer new targets for the development of drugs to regulate blood clotting, he added.

The study appears online in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. (ANI)