Tailor-made Janus lectin with dual avidityassembles glycoconjugate multilayers andcrosslinks protocells

摘要

We engineered the first chimeric, bispecific lectin, with two rationally oriented and distinct recognitionsurfaces. This lectin, coined Janus lectin in allusion to the two-faced roman god, is able to bindindependently to both fucosylated and sialylated glycoconjugates. The multivalent presentation ofbinding sites on each face of the Janus lectin is very efficient, resulting in avidities in the low nanomolarrange for both fucosylated and sialylated surfaces. Moreover, novel heterovalent, bifunctionalglycoclusters were synthetized that match the topology of the Janus lectin. Based on these tools, weconstructed organized and controlled supramolecular architectures by assembling Janus lectin andglycocompound layer-by-layer. Furthermore, the Janus lectin was employed as biomolecular linker toorganize protocells made from giant unilamellar vesicles of different nature, to more complexprototissues. In summary, tailor-made Janus lectins open wide possibilities for creating biomimeticmatrices or artificial tissues.