Interaction of factor XIa and antithrombin in the presence and absence of heparin.

We have studied the interaction between purified human factor XIa and antithrombin in the presence and absence of well-characterized preparations of heparin. The concentrations of hemostatic enzyme, protease inhibitor, and mucopolysaccharide were 5.76 X 10(-8) mol/L, 5.76 X 10(6) mol/L, and either 5.88 X 10(6) mol/L or 0, respectively. Kinetic investigation of this process using a tritiated factor IX substrate demonstrated that the pseudo first-order rate constants of this reaction in the presence and absence of heparin are approximately 1.0 min-1 and approximately 0.025 min-1, respectively. Thus, the rate of hemostatic enzyme-protease inhibitor complex formation is accelerated by about 40-fold in the presence of saturating levels of the mucopolysaccharide. These results were confirmed in a qualitative manner by directly monitoring the generation of factor XIa-antithrombin interaction product with sodium dodecyl sulfatepolyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) and Western blot analysis using an antibody population specific for the protease inhibitor.