Lectins from Wistaria floribunda seeds and their effect on membrane fluidity of human peripheral lymphocytes

Two lectins were isolated from Wistaria floribunda seeds. One is a strong mitogen against human peripheal lymphocytes and has been purified in the previous paper (Toyo-Shima S., Y., Nakano K., Tonomura, A., and Osawa T. (1971) Biochemistry 10, 4457). The other, which is a strong hemagglutinin being devoid of mitogenic activity against normal lymphocytes, has been purified in this paper by affinity chromatography on a Sepharose 6B column followed by DEAE-Sephadex column chromatography. Both lectins were found to be glycoproteins and their molecular weights were estimated to be 136,000 for the equilibrium. The hemagglutinin is composed of four apparently identical subunits of a molecular weight of 35,000 and the mitogen is adimer of 32,000 molecular weight subunit. Binding experiments with 125-I-labeled W. floribunda mitogen revealed that the maximal incorporation of [6-3H]thymidine or 32-PO4 occurred when only 5.2% of the avaliable receptor sites on normal lymphocytes were occupied by the mitogen. Furthermore, the mobility of W. floribunda lectins as well as other lectins bound to the cell receptor sites of normal lymphocytes was determined by fluorescence polarization of fluorescein-labeled lectins. The mitogen lectins tested, have high mobility and Lens culinaris hemagglutinin, have high mobility whereas the nonmitogenic lectins, W. floribunda hemagglutinin, Sophora japonica hemagglutinin, and eel serum anti-H hemagglutin show relatively low mobility. However, W. floribunda hemagglutinin bound to neuraminidase-treated lymphocytes showed relatively high mobility in accord with the fact that this hemagglutinin exerted weak but definite mitogenic activity against neuraminidase-treated lymphocytes. The change of membrane fluidity upon binding of the lectins to normal lymphocytes was also measured by fluorescence polarization of fluorescent hydrocarbon, 1,6-diphenyl-1,3,5-hexatriene, embedded in the membrane. The mitogenic lectins, W. floribunda mitogen and L. culinaris hemagglutinin, increased the membrane fluidity upon binding to lymphocyte cell surface within 30 min, whereas the non-mitogenic lectins, W. floribunda hemagglutinin and S. japonica hemagglutinin, did not effect the membrane fluidity. We suggest that the increase of membrane fluidity is one of the common biochemical events in the earliest stage of lymphocytes transformation.