Hirudin from leech heads and whole leeches and “pseudo-hirudin” from leech bodies

Abstract

Hirudin from whole leeches behaves like hirudin from leech heads and “pseudohirudin” from leech bodies during isolation and purification by means of acetone and ethanol fractionation, affinity chromatography on trypsin-Sepharose, and isoelectric focusing. However, the antithrombin activity of the hirudin fractions obtained after isoelectric focusing was approximately three times lower than that of the corresponding hirudin fractions from the heads. The “pseudohirudin” fractions had practically no antithrombin activity. In hirudin from whole leeches isoleucine and valine were identified as the N-terminal amino acid . Isoleucine was identified as the dominant amino acid in hirudin from leech heads. The dominant N-terminal amino acid in “pseudohirudin” from leech bodies was valine. The data on antithrombin activity and N-terminal amino acids indicate that hirudin from whole leeches contains admixtures of inactive “pseudohirudin”. In contrast to hirudin from leech heads, “pseudohirudin” represents associates of di-and threemers. The molecular weight of the “pseudohirudin” molecule is 2000 lower than the molecular weight of hirudin, which corresponds to a difference of 20 amino acid residues, calculated from the total number of amino acid residues in the preparations.