Carbohydrate Microarrays for Lectin Characterization and Glyco-Epitope Identification

摘要

Lectins are an important class of proteins or glycoproteins of non-immune origin that bind non-covalently to characteristic carbohydrate structures with specificity or selectivity. There are many ways to classify lectins. Given the fact that a wide range of living organisms, from microbes to mammals, produce lectins, they can be divided according to species origin, such as microbial lectins, plant lectins, invertebrate lectins and vertebrate lectins. Based on the similarities in sequence of homology and activity, lectins can also be grouped into subfamilies. There are at least five groups of vertebrate lectins, such as C-type (calcium dependent), P-type, S-type, I-type, and pentraxins [1]. Cellular lectin molecules or receptors with lectin-like carbohydrate-binding domains play important roles in cell signaling, protein intracellular trafficking, and cell-cell communication [2-5]. In this chapter, we summarize the concept and the updated information regarding the specificity-based lectin classification (Section 2). Then, we introduce a practical platform of carbohydrate microarrays that is likely useful for lectin characterization and classification (Section 3). Lastly, we discuss a few examples to illustrate the application of this technology in lectin-related experimental investigations (Section 4).