Lectins: Proteins with Diverse Applications.
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Date
2013-05
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Abstract
Lectins are proteins that bind to carbohydrates and sugar containing substances in a specific and reversible way
or precipitate glycoconjugates. These heterogeneous class of carbohydrate-binding proteins or glycoproteins of
non-immune origin are capable of specific recognition of, and reversible binding to, carbohydrates without
altering their covalent structure. Lectins are found in a diversity of organisms and possess the ability to
agglutinate erythrocytes with known carbohydrate specificity since they have at least one non-catalytic domain
that binds reversibly to specific monosaccharides or oligosaccharides. This review aims to highlight the
applications of lectins in various fields of biology. Lectins are isolated from their natural sources by
chromatographic procedures with various modulations to increase their production. The yields of animal lectins
are usually low compared with the yields of plant lectins such as legume lectins, which form a major source of
these proteins. Lectins manifest a diversity of activities including anti-insect activities, antitumor,
immunomodulatory, antimicrobial and HIV-1 reverse transcriptase inhibitory, which may find applications in
many therapeutic areas. A small number of lectins demonstrate anti-parasitic activities.
Description
Keywords
Lectins, Hemagglutinins, Antimicrobial, antitumor, antiviral, therapeutic applications
Citation
Hamid Rabia, Masood Akbar, Wani Ishfak H, Rafiq Shaista. Lectins: Proteins with Diverse Applications. Journal of Applied Pharmaceutical Science. 2013 May; 3(4 suppl_1): s93-s103.