[Structure and mechanism of functioning of centers of fibrin polymerization].
Fibrinogen takes part in a lot of physiological and pathological processes in the organism. Its most important function consists in preventing blood leakage through the injured wall of the blood vessel. Proteolytic enzyme thrombin generated in the site of the injury splits low-molecular fibrinopeptides A and B from fibrinogen and transforms the latter into the monomeric fibrin which is spontaneously polymerized with formation of a clot of blood closing a lumen of the injured vessel. Fibrin polymerization that completes the stages of blood coagulation is the example of self-assembling of supermolecular biological structures in blood coagulation system. Clearing-up of this process mechanisms is of great theoretical and practical importance, in particular, for clinical medicine connected with treatment of hemorrhages and thromboses.