Carbohydrate-enzyme conjugate

In this article the preparation of one class of carbohydrate-enzyme conjugates, prepared by attachment of dextran to enzymes, is described in some detail and the properties of enzymes modified in this way are discussed. The molecular basis of enzyme stabilization by coupling with dextran is also considered. 

Since carbohydrates are able to protect enzymes from thermal denaturation and proteolysis (15), since they are good candidates as vectors (16), we also studied a carbohydrate-enzyme conjugate. 

Carbohydrates are easily oxidized by periodate to aldehydes which react with primary amines or hydrazines. If the formed hydrazide carries a specific ligand, e.g., biotin or digoxigenin, these ligands immobilized via the blotted macromolecule are very sensitively detected by the respective enzyme conjugates. 

Not only biotinylated proteins, but also nucleic acids or peptides synthesized in the presence of biotin derivatives or carbohydrate-biotin conjugates, are separated by immobilized avidin and streptavidin, respectively, or are identified by avidin-enzyme or avidin-gold conjugates. 

Many types of mono-, bi-, and multifunctional coupling reagents are available for labeling antibodies or antigens with an enzyme. Glutaraldehyde, carbodiimide, N-succinimidyl-3-(2-pyridyldithio)propionate, and periodate oxidation of carbohydrate moieties to form active dialdehydes are several commonly used approaches in the preparation of enzyme conjugates (104-106). 

Conjugation of HRP by reductive amination can be done by oxidizing the carbohydrate on the enzyme and subsequently coupling to the amines on (strept)avidin (Figure 23.5). 

The enzymes commonly used as labels in ELISA and other immunochemical reactions include horse radish peroxidase (HRP) and alkaline phosphatase (AP). The enzyme can be covalently coupled to the antibody using glutaraldehyde conjugation to reactive amino groups on the enzyme (lysines) in a phosphate buffered aqueous solution at neutral pH, as shown in Fig. 19 (103). Alternatively, carbohydrates present in the immunoglobulin structure can be cleaved by periodate treatment (see Fig. 20) and bound to free amino groups on the enzyme through a Schiff base reaction (103). 

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