Immunochemical studies on blood groups LXII. Fractionation of hog and human A, H, and AH blood group active substance on insoluble immunoadsorbents of Dolichos and Lotus lectins.

The purified lectins from Lotus tetragonolobus and Dolichos biflorus were coupled to Sepharose 2B to make insoluble adsorbents for purification and fractionation of blood group A and H active glycoproteins. With both adsorbents, hog gastric mucin A + H blood substance (HGM), purified by phenol-ethanol precipitation, yielded fractions showing only A, only H, or AH activities. The AH fraction was obtained when the adsorbent column was overloaded with HGM and its A and H specificities seem to be carried on the same molecules since they were not separable by chromatography on either column. However A and H specificities of blood group substance from the stomach of a presumably heterozygous individual hog were both on the same molecules as they too could not be fractionated on either column. Analytical properties of the isolated fractions were generally similar to those of the unfractionated material, the purfied A substances had a higher galactosamine/fucose ratio than did the H substances. Although the original A + H showed very little specific optical rotation, the separated A and H substances rotated positively and negatively, respectively. The lectin-Sepharose adsorbents have also proven useful in isolating A or H substances directly from the crude commercial hog gastric mucin. Blood group A2 substance from a human ovarian cyst yielded two fractions on the Lotus-Sepharose column; the effluent did not interact with the Lotus lectin but precipitated the Ulex and Dolichos lectins and anti-A, and appears to contain type 1 H determinants. The other fraction reacted with Lotus and Ulex lectin as well as with Dolichos and anti-A.