Purification of thrombospondin from human platelets

Thrombospondins are a rapidly growing family of adhesive proteins that have diverse activities to modulate cellular growth, motility, and gene expression. Thrombospondin-1 (TSP) was the first identified member of this family and is the major form of thrombospondin in human platelets. A method is described to prepare TSP from human platelets in biologically active form with minimal degradation or contamination with other platelet proteins.