Structures of the sugar chains of interferon-gamma produced by human myelomonocyte cell line HBL-38.

Interferon-gamma produced by the human myelomonocyte cell line HBL-38 contained galactose, mannose, fucose, N-acetylglucosamine, and N-acetylneuraminic acid as sugar components. Sugar chains were liberated from interferon-gamma by hydrazinolysis. Free amino groups of the sugar chains were acetylated and the reducing-end sugar residues were tagged with 2-aminopyridine under new reaction conditions in which no sialic acid residue was hydrolyzed. The pyridylamino (PA-) derivatives of the sugar chains thus obtained were purified by gel filtration and reversed-phase HPLC. Seven major PA-sugar chains were isolated and the structure of each purified PA-sugar chain was identified by stepwise exoglycosidase digestion and 500-mHz 1H-NMR spectroscopy. The results indicated that the structures of the major PA-sugar chains were of the biantennary type, to which 0 to 2 mol of fucose and 1 to 2 mol of N-acetylneuraminic acid were linked as shown below. (formula; see text)