The isolectins of Helix pomatia. Separation by isoelectric focusing and preliminary characterization.

Helix pomatia lectin was fractionated into several (at least 12) components by isolectric focusing in PharmalyteTM. Eight of these were recovered from a preparative column experiment and shown to be essentially pure by analytical electrofocusing in polyacrylamide gel slabs. The lectin components had haemagglutinating activity against human group A erythrocytes and similar molecular weights of 80 000 as determined vidual components showed slight variations in composition. The components are considered to be isolectins. Isoelectric focusing of lectin samples prepared from single snails from two different biotopes showed isolectin patterns similar to that of pooled lectin. Gel filtration of the lectin and flat bed electrofocusing of isolated isolectins both in the presence of 6 M ura, indicated that the lectin molecules are formed by different combinations of a range subunits with similar molecular weight but with different isoelectric points.