Description
General Description
The product C1s-C1INH Complex (CompTech #C1040) is made by interacting purified protease inhibitor C1-INH (CompTech # A140) with purified C1s enzyme (CompTech #A104) followed by purification. The protease inhibitor C1-INH prevents the spontaneous activation of complement and limits consumption of C2 and C4 by rapidly inactivating C1r, C1s and MASP2. It is the only plasma serine protease inhibitor (Serpin) capable of interacting with and inhibiting activated C1. C1-INH interacts with the catalytic sites of both C1r and C1s. The interaction with activated C1r and C1s is covalent resulting in complexes which are stable to SDS. C1s and C1r enzymes, however, are irreversibly inactivated by binding to C1-INH. C1s-C1INH (CompTech #C1040) is a very stable complex that remains intact even when subjected to freeze/thaw cycles with almost no loss of the complex form.
Physical Characteristics & Structure
The C1s enzyme-C1INH complex is composed of two disulfide linked chains from C1s enzyme (A chain 58,000 Da and B chain 28,000 Da) and one covalently linked chain from C1-INH (75,000 Da). SDS-PAGE analysis of the C1s-C1INH complex shows a single band of about 161,000 Da under nonreducing conditions. Under reducing conditions, the C1s-C1INH complex exhibits two bands: A 58,000 Da band corresponding to the A chain of C1s enzyme and a second 103,000 Da band resulting from C1INH (75,000 Da) covalently bound to the B chain (28,000 Da) of C1s enzyme.
Regulation
Activated C1s is controlled by C1-INH. C1s enzyme and C1-INH form a covalent complex that is resistant to separation on SDS gels. During complement activation C1 complex is rapidly activated by binding to immune complexes. The resulting activated C1s and C1r are rapidly inactivated by interaction with C1-INH (Ziccardi, R.J. (1982)). Binding to immune complexes is fast (10-20 sec) and activation of the bound C1 complex takes several minutes, but C1-INH has also been shown to be fast and no active C1r or C1s remain 4 min after addition of immune complexes to plasma (Ross, G.D. (1986); Ziccardi, R.J. (1981)). The binding of C1-INH to activated C1 releases both C1r and C1s from the complex leaving C1q bound to the immune complex. The released complexes contain four molecules: C1-INH-C1r-C1s-C1-
INH. The reaction of C1 esterase inhibitor with activated C1 is very fast with the estimated half-life of C1r and C1s being approximately 15 seconds in serum. In fact, at serum concentrations of C1- INH little or no additional C4 or C2 activation occurs 3 min after immune complexes are added because all the C1r and C1s molecules have been inactivated and removed from the C1q which remains bound to the immune complex (Ross, G.D. (1986); Morley, B.J. and Walport, M.J. (2000); Rother, K., et al. (1998); Ziccardi, R.J. (1982a and 1982b); Morgan, B.P. (1990)). The interaction of purified C1s enzyme and C1-INH is slower.
Function
See General Description and Regulation above.
Applications
C1s-C1INH complex can be used in studies designed for developing and identifying inhibitors for C1s activation thus leading to the possible development of therapeutics for inhibiting complement activation via the classical pathway