Isolation and Sugar Composition of Blood Group H-Like Substance from Seeds of Euonymus Sieboldiana

Blood group H-like polysaccharides were isolated from seeds of Euonymus Sieboldiana by a procedure that included fractionation with (NH₄)SO₄, heat treatment, chromatography on DEAE-cellulose and gel filtration on Bio-Gel P-150. One of the highly purified polysaccharide fractions was composed of arabinose, mannose, glucose, rhamnose, galactose and fucose. Arabinose and mannose were the main components, and their molar ratio was calculated as about 3: 1 by gas chromatographic analysis. An analytical ultracentrifugal experiment revealed that the finally purified H-like substance was close to an homogeneous preparation with a small disperse fraction. This heteropolysaccharide inhibited the haemagglutination of human group O red blood cells and eel anti-H serum minimally at 0.004 mg/ml, reacted also with the eel anti-H serum on an immunodiffusion plate to form sharp precipitin line(s).