Purification and characterization of hedgehog liver metallothioneins

Two forms of liver metallothioneins (MTs) were purified from hedgehog exposed to zinc, using gel filtration on Sephacryl S-100 and DEAE Sepharose Fast Flow chromatography. The peptide chain weight of both MT-1 and MT-2 was found to be about 10,000, as determined by high performance liquid chromatography. This value was higher than that calculated from amino acid analysis. The amino acid composition of hedgehog liver MT-1 and MT-2 resembles that of liver to MTs from rabbit and other species. Their distinctive features include an extremely high cysteine content, about 33% of all the amino acid residues, and an absence of aromatic amino acids and histidine. In addition, a rapid method for the determination of MTs during animal tissue purification has been established. The samples were directly added in an ammoniacal solution of a Co(II) salt for recording linear sweep polarograms. By comparison with the commonly used metal determination method, our method is direct, rapid, credible and suitable for all the MTs or MT-like samples.