Purification and Some Properties of Tetanolysin

Abstract

Tetanolysin was purified from the culture fluid of a strain of Clostridium tetani by ammonium sulfate fractionation, acetone precipitation and repeated gel filtration. Two hemolysins with different molecular weights were separated by gel filtration, and the smaller one, tetanolysin, was further purified. The purification raised the specific activity of tetanolysin 1,050-fold to 500 HU/micrograms of protein. The purified preparation gave a single, relatively broad band on polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, in which the activity was roughly parallel with the protein concentration. However, on sodium dodecylsulfate-gel electrophoresis it gave two bands with nearly equal amounts of proteins, showing molecular weights of 53,000 and 48,000 +/- 3,000. Furthermore, isoelectric focusing revealed four peaks of the activity whose isoelectric pHs were 6.1, 5.6, 5.3, and 6.6 in decreasing order of the activity. These findings suggest that the preparation contains four hemolysins with different pIs, which are classifiable into two groups by molecular size. The preparation was completely free of tetanus neurotoxin and proteases. Tetanolysin was more strongly inhibited by cholesterol and more rapidly absorbed onto erythrocytes than theta-toxin of Cl. perfringens.