Studies on the toxicity and binding kinetics of abrin in normal and Epstein Barr virus-transformed lymphocyte culture-I: experimental results - 3.

The effects of treatment with varying doses of abrin, a D-galactose binding lectin, on DNA and protein synthesis of normal and Epstein Barr virus-transformed lymphocytes have been investigated. Using data on EBV-transformed lymphocyte cell density as a function of time and dose of abrin, one can demonstrate that the mean number of sites bound/EBV-lymphocyte needed to exert a biological influence upon the cell DNA synthesis lies between 59,264 and 370,000 sites/cell. Using a simple packing model, one can demonstrate that a theoretical estimate places the number of binding sites between 57,600 and 360,000 sites/cells.