Glycosylation of chicken haptoglobin: isolation and characterization of three molecular variants and studies of their distribution in hen plasma before and after turpentine-induced inflammation.

Chicken haptoglobin (Hp), a hemoglobin-binding protein isolated from chicken plasma, is composed of three molecular variants that react differently with concanavalin A (ConA). These glycosylation variants of chicken Hp have been isolated by affinity chromatography using Sepharose-bound ConA. They differ in their molecular weight, as determined by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis in the presence of sodium dodecyl sulfate. Analysis of the glycopeptides obtained after pronase digestion of these variants yielded two types of structures: one, reactive with ConA, corresponded to a biantennary N-linked carbohydrate unit and one, unreactive with ConA, corresponded to a triantennary unit. The strongly ConA-reactive Hp variant bears only two biantennary units and the nonreactive Hp variant bears only two triantennary units; the weakly reactive Hp variant bears equal amounts of both units. The distribution of Hp glycosylation variant does not show any significant difference when obtained from the plasma of laying hens before and after turpentine-induced inflammation.