Hemaglutininas e hemolisinas em plantas da Região Amazônica.

Abstract

Seed extracts of 109 species and varieties of plants from the Amazon region have been tested for their hemagglutinating and/or hemolytic activity. Fifty-four of them belonged to the leguminosae and the remaining to other families. Nonspecific agglutinins were found in 14.7% of the extracts, while 32.1% had hemolysins for the human erythrocytes. The leguminosae showed significantly less agglutinins and /or hemolysins (30.1%) than the other studied (61.8%). The occurrence of an anti - A + B lectin in Crotolaria mucronata was confirmed. The titers of extracts from plants grown in Belém and Santarém were practilly identical and very similar to those obtained in India and Finland by other authors. Some strains of this leguminosus plant however do not seem to carry the lectin.