APPLICATION OF RECOMBINANT RHODOSTOMIN IN STUDYING CELL-ADHESION

Rhodostomin from venom of Agkistrodon rhodostoma (also called Callosel asma rhodostoma) contains 68 amino acid residues including 6 pairs of disulfide bonds and an arginine-glycine-aspartic acid (RGD) sequence a t positions 49-51. It has been known as one of the strongest antagonis ts to platelet aggregation among the family termed disintegrin. In thi s review paper, in addition to introducing the characteristics of disi ntegrin and its related molecules, the advantages of using recombinant DNA technology to produce rhodostomin are described. The recombinant rhodostomin has been demonstrated to facilitate cell adhesion via inte raction between the RGD motif of rhodostomin and integrins on the cell surface. This property allowed us to use the recombinant rhodostomin as an extracellular matrix to study cell adhesion and to distinguish a ttachment efficiency between two melanoma cell lines B16-F1 and B16-F1 0, the former is a low metastasis cell while the latter is a high meta stasis cell. Furthermore, by using the recombinant rhodostomin as a su bstrate, osteoprogenitor-like cells are able to be selected and enrich ed within 3 days from rat bone marrow which contains a heterogeneous c ell population. Finally, we show that the recombinant rhodostomin can be immobilized on beads and which serve as an affinity column to disse ct cell-surface protein(s) binding to the RGD motif of rhodostomin.