 Haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS) is a disease associated with microangiopathic haemolytic anemia, thrombocytopenia and acute renal failure.A rare subset of this disease (referred to as atypical haemolytic uraemic syndrome, aHUS), has been strongly linked to mutations in genes of the complement system (including factor H, factor I and membrane cofactor protein), with the factor H mutations being the most numerous.These factor H mutations tend to congregate towards the C-terminus of factor H—a region responsible for discriminating self from non-self—and have been shown to disrupt heparin (a model compound for glycosaminoglycans) and C3d (equivalent to the thioester domain of C3b) binding.