Carbohydrate binding protein

Lectins are carbohydrate-binding proteins involved in cell adhesion and other biologic processes. 

Several carbohydrate-binding proteins have been isolated from Sambucus nigra and two haemagglutinins have been isolated from its bark. Its seeds contain a lectin that is related to the immunological properties of the bark. One of its carbohydrate-binding proteins, called nigrin, is made of two subunits and is reported to cause red blood cells to clump. 5... 

Such sugar-dendrimer complexes ( sugar balls ) have been used to inhibit the interactions of viruses with cell surfaces. Many viruses bind to particular carbohydrate residues on cell surfaces, which in turn facilitate their entry into cells and the resultant infection process. A virus particle presents a multi-dentate surface consisting of many carbohydrate-binding proteins able to interact with multiple cell-surface carbohydrates. The surface of a dendrimer that is modified with... 

Figure 7.13 Lactone sugar derivatives can be used to react with amine-containing dendrimers, which results in coupling via amide bonds. The sugar ball dendrimers then can be used to specifically bind to carbohydrate binding proteins.

Beau has applied the DCC concept to a number of carbohydrate systems [13-16]. Carbohydrate-binding proteins often exhibit weak ligand interactions with millimolar dissociation constants, a quite different scenario to the enzyme-small molecule DCLs discussed thus far. The protein target initially chosen for study was hen egg-white lysozyme (HEWL), a glycosidase known to bind A-acetyl-o-glucosamine (d-G1cNAc) with... 

Analytical tools have been developed in order to identify carbohydrate structures as well as carbohydrate-binding proteins and to understand their underlying structure-function relationships of protein-carbohydrate and carbohydrate-carbohydrate interactions lectin arrays [16], glycan microarrays [17, 18], glyco-nanoparticles [19], frontal affinity chromatography [20] and carbohydrate tools for metabolic labeling [21]. 

Specific detection of oligosaccharides is possible using lectins, carbohydrate-binding proteins from very different sources. A se-... 

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