Isolation of a novel heterodimeric agglutinin from rhizomes of Smilax glabra, the Chinese medicinal material tufuling

A heterodimeric agglutinin with a molecular mass of 32 kDa, and comprised of a 15 and a 17 kDa-subunit, was isolated from Smilax glabra rhizomes. The isolation protocol entailed ion exchange chromatography on CM-Sepharose, DEAE-cellulose and Resource Q and gel filtration on Superose 12. The two agglutinin subunits resembled each other and lectins from other Liliaceae plants in N-terminal sequence. The hemagglutinating activity of the agglutinin was unstable under acidic and alkaline conditions and when exposed to temperatures at or higher than 50 degreesC. The activity was not altered by a number of monovalent, divalent and trivalent cations, nor by a variety of sugars and glycoproteins. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.