Ischemia-Modified Albumin as a Marker of Acute Coronary Syndrome: The Case for Revising the Concept of “N-Terminal Modification” to “Fatty Acid Occupation” of Albumin

Figure 1

Location of the seven major FA-binding sites of human serum albumin, in relation to the main cobalt binding sites (i.e., N-terminal, site A, and site B). FA2 is one of the high affinity sites for FAs and communicates allosterically with cobalt binding to sites A/B. N-terminus never involves FA binding, and thus continues cobalt binding in the presence of “FA-occupied albumin.” Image was generated using Protein Data Bank (PDB) ID: 1E7E [21] and modified according to Lu et al. [5].