A comparative study of phytohaemagglutinin and extract of Phaseolus vulgaris seeds by characterization and cytogenetics.

Phytohaemagglutinin (PHA) is a lectin obtained from Phaseolus vulgaris (red kidney beans), that acts as a mitogen in human leucocyte culture and is commercially available from Gibco. This PHA (Gibco) was found to be very expensive, hence other inexpensive sources that can be used in all kinds of cytogenetics labs (rich and poor), were attempted. One such successful attempt was PHA extract from seeds of P.vulgaris. This paper details the methodology of extraction and application of PHA from seeds of P.vulgaris. Attempts has been made to identify the chemical and physical properties of the products in the extract, analyzed by various spectroscopic and analytical techniques. The analysis clearly indicates that the product from Phaseolus seeds extract was found to be similar to the commercially available PHA (Gibco) in the cytogenetic study of human leucocyte cultures. The present study enforces the possible utility of the plant extract directly for human leucocyte cultures.