Carbohydrates bacterial receptor

The examples discussed above impressively show the diversity and importance of interaction between bacterial adhesion determinants and carbohydrate-containing receptor molecules. Pathogenic bacteria use binding to carbohydrates in different disease stages. However, many questions remain to be answered to unravel the full spectrum of bacteria-host interactions via carbohydrate binding. 

The precise chemical interactions between an adhesin and its receptor are also important. For example, direct- and water-mediated hydrogen bonds are the most important interactions within the carbohydrate-recognition domain in carbohydrate-binding adhesins on the host cell surface (Weis and Drickamer, 1996). Nonpolar van der Waals interactions and hydrophobic "stacking of the receptor oligosaccharide rings with aromatic amino acid side chains of the bacterial adhesin protein also contribute to oligosaccharide-protein interactions. X-ray structural... 

---