Nomenclature of Secreted Platelet Proteins – Report of the Working Party on Secreted Platelet Proteins of the Subcommittee on Platelets

Abstract

SummaryStandard nomenclature for a number of secreted platelet proteins was agreed upon by The Working Party on Secreted Platelet Proteins of the Subcommittee on Platelets. Platelet factor 4 will continue to be used for the molecule with high heparin affinity, subunit molecular weight of 7780, and the described amino acid sequence. β-Thromboglobulin will be used to designate β-Thromboglobulin (81 amino acids/subunit, β-mobility on cellulose-acetate electrophoresis, pI 7), low-affinity platelet factor 4 (85 amino acids/subunit, y-mobility on cellulose-acetate electrophoresis, pI 8), and platelet basic protein (94 amino acids/ subunit, pI 10) when these are measured immunologically in plasma, but that thromboglobulin with a superscript designation of the pI should be used when assays are conducted on samples after isoelectric focusing, and a subscript amino-terminal amino acid can be added when a purified protein is described. Thrombospondin will continue to be the designation for the high molecular weight trimer that has previously been called thrombospondin or glycoprotein G. Platelet derived growth factor will be used for the group of closely related proteins of molecular weight about 30,000 and isoelectric point about 10.