Plasminogen activator inhibitors in plasma and platelets from patients with recurrent venous thrombosis and pregnant women.

Using affinity chromatography on lysine Sepharose 4B, a fast-acting tissue plasminogen activator inhibitor (t-PAI) was partially purified from t-PAI-rich plasma from patients with recurrent DVT. Its inhibition of tissue plasminogen activator (t-PA) was demonstrated in functional assays and its reaction with 125I-t-PA was analyzed by autoradiography following SDS-PAGE (sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis). When the t-PAI was mixed with an equimolar concentration of t-PA at 37 degrees C, the half-life of free one-chain and two-chain 125I-t-PA was 1.8 and 0.8 min, respectively. The rate of complex formation between 125I-t-PA and t-PAI was similar both in patient plasma, pregnancy plasma and platelet lysates made from platelet-rich normal, patient and pregnancy plasma. The molecular weights of the complexes between t-PA and the inhibitors in patient plasma and in the different platelet lysates were identical, while that of the inhibitor complex formed in pregnancy plasma was found slightly higher by SDS-PAGE indicating that the pregnancy plasma t-PAI differs from the fast-acting t-PAI found in plasma from thrombotic patients and in platelet lysates.