Purification and properties of agglutinins from conger eel, Conger myriaster (Brevoort), skin mucus

The skin mucus of the conger eel, Conger myriaster, contains galactose-specific agglutinins. Hemagglutinating activity is independent of divalent cations and is destroyed by heating at 50 °C for 15 min. The mucus agglutinins, named congerins, are a mixture of proteins with different electrical charges. Three of these molecules were isolated by affinity chromatography on acid-treated Sepharose 4B and by ion-exchange chromatography. They are simple proteins with the same molecular weight of 30,000 and consisting of two subunits (each 13,000 daltons). The agglutinins inhibited the normal embryonic development of the starfish Asterina pectinifera, and lysed the fertilized eggs at a concentration of 25 μg protein/ml. They also agglutinated but did not inhibit the growth of a marine bacterium, Vibrio anguillarum.