Structural analysis of fibronectin with monoclonal antibodies

The reactivity of six monoclonal antibodies with fragments of fibronectin produced with trypsin, chymotrypsin, and Staphylococcus aureaus V8 protease is described. All these antibodies reacted with fragments derived from the C-terminal one-third of fibronectin. This region probably contains sites for the binding of fibronectin to cells, and to heparin and may also contain active sites for the reattachment, spreading, and alignment of transformed cells. Analysis of the reactivities of different sets of proteolytic fragments with the antibodies and with other ligands (eg. heparin) allows one to determine overlaps between the fragments and to locate the positions of the different binding sites for antibodies and ligands. One of the antibodies has allowed us to identify a site of structural difference between cellular and plasma fibronectins from hamsters. The site recognized by this antibody is located near to, but not at, the C-terminal end and does not involve carbohydrate groups. Because of its internal location in fibronectin, this difference suggests that there are probably different genes for cellular and plasma fibronectin. These monoclonal antibodies should be useful for further probing the functions present in the C-terminal regions of fibronectin and for determining their locations.