[Stabilization of the alpha-fetoprotein structure with sucrose].

By means of scanning microcalorimetry and fluorescent spectroscopy, the addition of sucrose was shown to stabilize the structure of human alpha-fetoprotein (AFP). The stabilizing effect was not eliminated during eight-day dialysis of AFP against a buffer containing no sucrose, but it can be substantially weakened by treating AFP with a specific enzyme, invertase, which splits sucrose into fructose and glucose. This indicates that human AFP is capable of specific sucrose binding.