simple alkaline protein usually occurring in combination with a nucleic acid as a nucleoprotein. In the 1870s Johann Friedrich Miescher (Miescher, Johann Friedrich) discovered a protamine, salmine, in the sperm of salmon. Other typical protamines include sturine, from sturgeon, and clupeine, from herring sperm. The drug protamine sulfate, prepared from the sperm of various fishes, is used as an antidote to overdoses of the anticoagulant heparin.