The findings in an August paper by Barry R. Lentz and colleagues are so controversial, it took three years to get them into print. Lentz, director of molecular and cellular biophysics at the University of North Carolina (UNC), purports to present "compelling evidence" that the lipid molecule phosphatidylserine (PS) is the key regulator of an enzyme complex central to blood coagulation.1
If true, this discovery would overturn a dogma of decades concerning the principal role played by membranes in clotting. It could change not only the way researchers think about coagulation, but how they prepare experiments to manipulate it, and which binding sites they choose for drug development. It might even lead to a new, targeted class of medications that prevent or treat the clots of strokes and heart attacks, hopefully without the unwanted bleeding that accompanies most such drugs. Lentz's main conclusion is that by binding to two key ...
