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Isolation, Characterization, and Cloning of Porcine Complement Component C7¹

Azin Agah^*, Michael C. Montalto^*, Cheri L. Kiesecker, Margaret Morrissey^*, Meera Grover^*, Kara L. Whoolery^*, Russell P. Rother and Gregory L. Stahl^2,*

^* Center for Experimental Therapeutics and Reperfusion Injury, Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115; and Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc., New Haven, CT 06511

Activation of the complement system through the classical, alternative, or lectin pathway results in the formation of the terminal complement complex. C7 plays an integral role in the assembly of this complex with target cell membranes. To date, only human C7 has been cloned and characterized; thus, in this study, we characterized the porcine complement component C7. Porcine C7 was isolated by affinity chromatography as a single glycoprotein with an approximate molecular mass of 90 kDa and 100 kDa under reducing and nonreducing conditions, respectively. The full-length porcine C7 cDNA was isolated, and the predicted amino acid sequence exhibited 80% identity with human C7 with conservation of the cysteine backbone and two putative N-linked glycosylation sites. Porcine C7 mRNA expression was detected in all tissues investigated, except polymorphonuclear and mononuclear leukocytes. Addition of purified porcine C7 restored the hemolytic activity of C7-depleted human sera in a dose-dependent manner. A functionally inhibitory mAb against porcine C7 attenuated the hemolytic activity of human, rabbit, or rat sera, suggesting an important conserved C7 epitope among species. These data demonstrate that porcine and human C7 are highly conserved, sharing structural and functional characteristics.