New insights into heparin binding to vitronectin: studies with monoclonal antibodies.

Vitronectin is a plasma glycoprotein that binds to a variety of ligands. There is considerable debate regarding the dependency of these binding interactions upon the conformational status of vitronectin, the role of multimerization and how the binding of different ligands can change vitronectin's conformational state. We have developed a method of capturing vitronectin directly from fresh plasma using solid-phase monoclonal antibodies.