Schematic representation of the α2AP protein and its different molecular forms. (A) Natively expressed α2AP and amino acid residues with their respective locations in the α2AP protein (not to scale). N-terminal cleavage, which results in the conversion of Met-α2AP to Asn-α2AP, occurs between proline at position 12 and asparagine at position 13. The glutamine residue at position 14 (position 2 in Asn-α2AP) is the fibrin crosslinking site. The dashed line represents the potential C-terminal cleavage site. The question marks represent the fact that the actual cleavage site is still unknown. The plasminogen-binding site of α2AP is located at the C-terminal end. (B) The different molecular forms of α2AP, 2 plasminogen-binding (PB) forms, and 2 non-plasminogen-binding forms.