Abciximab, a derivative of the murine mAb 7E3, protects against ischemic complications of percutaneous coronary interventions by inhibiting ligand binding to the ␣IIb3 receptor. In this study we identified regions on integrin 3 that control 7E3 binding. Murine͞ human amino acid substitutions were created in two regions of the A domain that previous studies found to influence 7E3 binding: the C177-C184 loop and K125-N133. The T182N substitution and a K125Q mutation reduced 7E3 binding to human 3 in complex with ␣IIb. The introduction of both the human C177-C184 region and human W129 into murine 3 was necessary and sufficient to permit 7E3 binding to the human ␣IIb͞murine 3 complex. Although we cannot exclude allosteric effects, we propose that 7E3 binds between C177-C184 and W129, which are within 15 Å of each other in the crystal structure and close to the 3 metal ion-dependent adhesion site. We previously demonstrated that 7E3 binds more rapidly to activated than unactivated platelets. Because it has been proposed that ␣IIb3 changes from a bent to an extended conformation upon activation, we hypothesized that 7E3 binds less well to the bent than the extended conformation. In support of this hypothesis we found that 7E3 bound less well to an ␣IIb3 construct locked in a bent conformation, and unlocking the conformation restored 7E3 binding. Thus, our data are consistent with ␣IIb3 existing in variably bent conformations in equilibrium with each other on unactivated platelets, and activation resulting in ␣IIb3 adopting a more extended conformation.T he integrin ␣IIb3 and ␣V3 receptors are important in a number of physiologic and pathologic phenomena, including hemostasis, thrombosis, tumor angiogenesis, and bone resorption (1, 2). The murine mAb 7E3 (3) blocks ligand binding to both ␣IIb3 and ␣V3 receptors (4, 5). Abciximab is a mouse͞ human chimeric Fab fragment of the mAb 7E3 that inhibits ␣IIb3-mediated platelet aggregation and is approved for human use to prevent the ischemic complications associated with percutaneous coronary interventions (6).Previous studies of 7E3 binding to cells expressing recombinant ␣IIb3 receptors demonstrated that: (i) swapping select murine for human ␣IIb sequences does not decrease 7E3 binding (7), (ii) removing the specificity determining loop (SDL) (K156-G189 sequence) from 3 results in loss of 7E3 binding (8), (iii) swapping the murine for human C177-C184 sequence within the SDL region in 3 results in loss of 7E3 binding (7), and (iv) swapping the murine S129-T133 sequence for the human W129-N133 sequence results in partial loss of 7E3 binding (7).The above human͞mouse swapping studies identified regions within 3 that affect 7E3 binding, but the biochemical and functional properties of these chimeric receptors were not characterized. In addition, the W129-N133 region contains two amino acid differences between human 3 (3Hu) and mouse 3 (3M) and the C177-C184 region contains three amino acid differences (Table 1). To define further the regions on ␣IIb3 th...