Carbohydrate wheat germ agglutinin

Fiebrig, L, Varum, K.M., Elarding, S.E., Davis, S.S., and Stokke, B.T. Colloidal gold and colloidal gold labelled wheat germ agglutinin as molecular probes for identification in mucin/ chitosan complexes, Carbohydr. Polym., 33 91-99 (1997). 

Carbohydrate-binding Specificity of Wheat-germ Agglutinin... 

Finne, J., Tao, T. and Burger, M. M. (1980). Carbohydrate changes in glycoproteins of a poorly metastasising wheat germ agglutinin-resistant melanoma clone. Cancer Res. 40,2580-2587. 

Wheat germ agglutinin is the most studied of these lectins and also one of the most useful in its biomedical application. The lectin is a homodimer composed of subunits of Mr = 23 600 Da which dissociates into monomers at acid pH. It is a pure, metal-free protein devoid of carbohydrate residues, which is isolated as a mixture of four isolectins differing in electrophoretic mobility [116,117]. The lectin has been sequenced (171 amino acids per polypeptide chain) and its X-ray crystallographic structure determined at a 2.0 A resolution [118,119]. 

Fig. 4. Carbohydrate microarrays containing 22 carbohydrate probes after incubation with (a) FITC-labeled Con A, (b) FITC-labeled N. pseudonarcissus and (c) FTTC-labeled wheat germ agglutinin.

The carbohydrate binding site of wheat-germ agglutinin is well characterized as being complementary to 2-acetamido-2-deoxy-D-glucose and its (l->-4)-/3-... 

Ohlson, S. Bergstrom, M. Leickt, L. Zopf, D. Weak affinity chromatography of small saccharides with immobilized wheat germ agglutinin and its application to mon- 16. itoring of carbohydrate transferase activity. Bioseparation 1998, 7, 101-105. 

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