Studies on a protamine (galline) from fowl sperm. 4. Degradation of galline by trypsin-like protease of fowl sperm heads.

Galline, a protamine of domestic fowl, was obtained by two preparation procedures from the semen of a strain of White Plymouth Rock and submitted to fractionation by column chromatography on Bio-Gel CM-30. In the first procedure the specimen prepared from sperm heads was purified by the use of distilled water and dilute acetic acid and fractionated into almost eight fractions (G-I-G-VIII) in the same way as the specimen from a strain of New Hampshire (1,2). No difference could be found between galline specimens from the two different strains based on the amino acid and terminal analyses of each fraction. The specimen of galline from sperm heads purified with 1% citric acid (the second procedure) was composed of only one component, which was isolated as a single peak. The smaller fractions, G-I-G-VII, were found to be derived from G-VIII by the action of trypsin-like protease contained in the extract of sperm heads with 1% citric acid. This enzyme seems to originate in the acrosome of fowl spermatozoa. Consequently, it is concluded that intact galline is composed of only one molecular species and its total amino acid sequence is represented by the completed formula of G-VIII as shown in the preceding paper (4).