Recombinant collagen-binding domain (rCBD) comprising the three fibronectin type II-like modules of human gelatinase A was found to compete the zymogen form of this matrix metalloproteinase from the cell surface of normal human fibroblasts in culture. Upon concanavalin A treatment of cells, the induced cellular activation of gelatinase A was markedly elevated in the presence of the rCBD. Therefore, the mechanistic aspects of gelatinase A binding to cells by this domain were further studied using cell attachment assays. Fibroblasts attached to rCBD-coated microplate wells in a manner that was inhibited by soluble rCBD, blocking antibodies to the  1 -integrin subunit but not the ␣ 2 -integrin subunit, and bacterial collagenase treatment. The C domain of MMPs is involved in several important protein-protein interactions. In gelatinase B the C domain binds TIMP-1, whereas interstitial and neutrophil collagenases utilize the C domain for binding and cleavage of native type I collagen (19). However, the gelatinase A C domain does not bind collagen (16,20). Instead, a different collagen-binding domain (CBD) is found in gelatinases A and B consisting of three fibronectin type II-like modules inserted in the catalytic domain (21,22). In addition to binding denatured type I collagen (23-25), our characterization of recombinant human gelatinase A CBD (rCBD) showed that this domain accounts for all of the binding properties of the enzyme to native and denatured collagen types I, V, and X and elastin and also contains a heparin-binding site (17,25). 3 The importance of these functions is shown by CBD deletion, which reduces gelatinase A cleavage of denatured type I collagen by 90% (20) and abolishes elastin binding and cleavage (26).The gelatinase A CBD may also serve to localize the enzyme to matrix components in tissues (17,20,25). These properties may similarly provide another mode of cell binding to membrane-associated matrix proteins, including collagen and hepa-