The serpins are of general protein chemical interest due to their ability to undergo a large conformational change consisting of the insertion of the reactive centre loop (RCL) as strand 4 of the central b sheet A. To make space for the incoming RCL, the ‘shutter region’ opens by the b strands 3A and 5A sliding apart over the underlying a helix B. Loop insertion occurs during the formation of complexes of serpins with their target serine proteinases and during latency transition. This type of loop insertion is unique to plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1). We report here that amino-acid substitutions.
