Description
Lectins are derived from the extracts of plants, animals, viruses and microorganisms and are known to agglutinate red blood cells. These agglutinins can select cell types according to blood group activities utilizing sugar-binding mechanisms.
Lectins form precipitates with glycoconjugates and are useful for identifying or separating oligosaccharides with identical sugar compositions such as galactose, mannose or glucose. isolated from Aleuria aurantia mushrooms
This lectin is a dimer of two identical subunits of about 36,000 daltons each with an isoelectric point of about pH 9. Unlike Ulex europaeus and Lotus tetragonolobus lectins which prefer (a -1,2) linked fucose residues, Aleuria aurantia lectin binds preferentially to fucose linked (a -1,6) to N-acetylglucosamine or to fucose linked (a -1,3) to N-acetyllactosamine related structures