Purification and characterization of an agglutinin of the soft coral Sinularia species.

A D-galactose-specific agglutinin, named sinularian, has been isolated from the soft coral Sinularia sp. by affinity chromatography on acid-treated Sepharose 4B and by gel filtration on HPLC. Sinularian was a glycoprotein containing 11% sugar. It gave a single band corresponding to 78 kDa in SDS-PAGE, irrespective of a treatment with 2-mercaptoethanol. Sinularian agglutinated rabbit erythrocytes and murine leukemia cells but not sheep or human ABO erythrocytes. Its hemagglutinating activity was Ca(++)-independent. Sinularian promoted binding of macrophages to tumor cells.