Cloning, purification and biochemical characterization of dipetarudin, a new chimeric thrombin inhibitor

The development of thrombin inhibitors could provide invaluable progress for antithrombotic therapy. In this paper, we report the cloning, purification and biochemical characterization of dipetarudin, a chimeric thrombin inhibitor composed of the N-terminal head structure of dipetalogastin II, the strongest inhibitor from the assassin bug Dipetalogaster maximus, and the exosite 1 blocking segment of hirudin, connected through a five glycine linker. The cloning of dipetarudin was performed by a simple method which had not been used previously to clone chimeras. Biochemical characterization of dipetarudin revealed that it is a slow, tight-binding inhibitor with a molecular mass (M-r=7560) and a thrombin inhibitory activity (K-i=446 fM) comparable to r-hirudin. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.