Interaction between staphylokinase, plasmin(ogen), and alpha 2-antiplasmin. Recycling of staphylokinase after neutralization of the plasmin-staphylokinase complex by alpha 2-antiplasmin.

Although the plasminogen activating equimolar complex of staphylokinase (STA) with human plasmin is very rapidly inhibited by alpha 2-antiplasmin, STA is a potent fibrinolytic agent in a human plasma milieu which contains 1 microM alpha 2-antiplasmin. In the present study, it was found that the complex of plasmin with recombinant STA (STAR), after neutralization with alpha 2-antiplasmin, retained the full plasminogen activating potential of STAR when added to a plasminogen solution (93 +/- 5% residual activity). When added to human plasma containing a 125I-fibrin-labeled plasma clot, equi-effective concentrations (causing 50% lysis in 2 h) were 17 +/- 3.0, 13 +/- 1.0, and 20 +/- 1.0 nM for STAR, equimolar plasmin-STAR mixtures, and plasmin-STAR mixtures neutralized by alpha 2-antiplasmin, respectively. Gel filtration of mixtures of plasmin(ogen) and STAR revealed elution as plasmin-STAR complex (Mr approximately 100,000), whereas after addition of alpha 2-antiplasmin, STAR eluted with an apparent Mr of 20,000. When mixtures of plasmin and STAR were adsorbed to lysine-Sepharose, STAR adsorbed quantitatively (96 +/- 1%) to the gel, whereas it was nearly quantitatively recovered in the unbound fraction (92 +/- 4%) after addition of alpha 2-antiplasmin to the mixture. Scatchard analysis of the binding of STAR to plasmin-Sepharose yielded a dissociation constant of 55 nM, whereas no specific binding of STAR to plasmin-alpha 2-antiplasmin-Sepharose could be demonstrated. These findings indicate that, both in purified systems and in a human plasma milieu containing a 125I-fibrin-labeled plasma clot, neutralization of the plasmin-STAR complex by alpha 2-antiplasmin results in dissociation of functionally active STAR from the complex and recycling of STAR to other plasminogen molecules. This dissociation-recycling process may explain the high fibrinolytic potency of STAR in a plasma milieu in the presence of high concentrations of alpha 2-antiplasmin.