Plasma fibronectin is a 450-kD glycoprotein composed of two similar subunits connected by interchain disulfide bridges that may fold over in solution, allowing the amino terminus of each chain to bind the carboxyl terminus of the same subunit or a different subunit, thereby allowing polymerization. In order to study the characteristics of the fold-over interaction, the interaction between the amino terminal 29-kD fragment of fibronectin with native fibronectin has been studied in detail. One 29-kD molecule bound per fibronectin subunit, the apparent equilibrium dissociation constant was 40 nM, and the half-times for association and dissociation at 22Β°C were, respectively, 16 h and 23 days. Complexation could be inhibited by high concentrations of salt, but not by 8M urea. Amino terminal 20-kD and carboxyl terminal 8-kD subfragments of the 29-kD fragment also bound fibronectin and the activity was dependent on the integrity of the type 1 loop structures. The kinetics of the interaction of 29-kD fragment with fibronectin were unaffected by the presence of ligands, but were affected by detergents such as sodium dodecyl sulfate or deoxycholate, which enhanced the rate of interaction over 100-fold or 6-fold, respectively. Therefore, the interaction of fibronectin with ionic cell membrane components such as deoxycholate in vivo may trigger polymerization.