Characterisation of Jack fruit lectin.

Jack fruit (Artocarpus Heterophyllus) seed extract contains a lectin termed Jack fruit lectin (JFL) which possesses diversed biological properties. A detailed analysis of its properties has been lacking. The present investigation was initiated to study the detail properties of JFL. After extraction and purification on affigel galactosamine-agarose column, JFL was subjected to ND-PAGE. Several different charged species from ND-PAGE upon SDS-PAGE gave rise to two dissimilar trimeric subunit at 12.5 and 15.0 KDa and retain biological activity. It was possible to elute the subunit bands separately from polyacrylamide gel to investigate their biological activity. Each subunit was found to be retained the lectin activity. Agglutinating activity of smaller subunit was found to be more, may be due to the greater amount of the subunit. This also suggests that each unit of trimeric JFL have similar lectin activity.