Purification and characterization of a human lectin specific for penultimate galactose residues.

A novel lectin has been found in human plasma. The lectin was purified by affinity chromatography using an adsorbent in which 2-O-alpha-D-glucopyranosyl-O-beta-D-galactopyranosylhydroxylysine (Glc-Gal-Hyl) was coupled to Sepharose. The molecular weight of the lectin was determined by gradient gel electrophoresis to be approximately 240,000. On polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis in sodium dodecyl sulphate, the subunit had the molecular weight of 29,500. Composition analysis has shown the lectin is a glycoprotein in which 12% of the molecule consists of carbohydrate. Native human, horse, calf, sheep, rabbit, and rat erythrocytes were agglutinated by the lectin in the presence of calcium. Glc-Gal-Hyl, N-acetylated Glc-Gal-Hyl, and stachyose inhibited the hemagglutination, whereas monosaccharides, maltose, cellobiose, lactose, raffinose, galactosylhydroxylysine, and N-acetylated galactosylhydroxylysine were not inhibitory. The lectin is strongly inhibited by the desialylated bovine erythrocyte glycoprotein, which contains galactose beta 1-3galactose beta-sequence at the nonreducing termini of the sugar chains, whereas disialylated orosomucoid did not inhibit the lectin. These results indicate that the lectin recognizes the penultimate galactose residue in a hapten molecule in contrast to usual galactose-binding proteins or galactose-specific lectins, which recognize exposed, terminal galactose residues of sugar chains.