Isolation and Characterization of the Subunits of a Heat-labile Alpha-amylase Inhibitor from Phaseolus Vulgaris White Kidney Bean

The heat-labile one of the two alpha-amylase inhibitors of the white kidney bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) was found to be composed of three kinds of subunits, and they were isolated and characterized. The alpha-subunit was free from tryptophan and cysteine and the beta-subunit contained no methionine or cysteine. There was no marked resemblance in tryptic peptide maps between the alpha- and beta-subunit polypeptides. The alpha-subunit contained 30% by weight of carbohydrate, mainly made up of high mannose-oligosaccharides, and the sugar moiety of the beta-subunit amounted 7% and appeared to be predominantly composed of xylomannose-type oligosaccharides. The largest subunit, gamma, was very similar in molecular features to a postulated alpha beta-dimer and its N-terminal sequence coincided with that of the alpha-subunit. The molecular weights of the polypeptides of alpha, beta-, and gamma-subunits were shown to be 7,800, 14,000, and 22,000, respectively, by SDS-PAGE. It seemed likely that the alpha- and beta-subunits are common to both of the inhibitors and that the heat-lability of this inhibitor arises from the gamma-subunit.