title: Leaves of the Lamiaceae species Glechoma hederacea (ground ivy) contain a lectin that is structurally and evolutionary related to the legume lectins.
abstract: A novel lectin has been isolated and cloned from leaves of Glechoma hederacea (ground ivy), a typical representative of the plant family Lamiaceae. Biochemical analyses indicated that the G. hederacea agglutinin (Gleheda) is a tetrameric protein consisting of four subunits pairwise linked through an interchain disulphide bridge and exhibits a preferential specificity towards N-acetylgalactosamine. Cloning of the corresponding gene and molecular modeling of the deduced sequence demonstrated that Gleheda shares high sequence similarity with the legume lectins and exhibits the same overall fold and three-dimensional structure as the classical legume lectins. The identification of a soluble and active legume lectin ortholog in G. hederacea not only indicates that the yet unclassified Lamiaceae lectins belong to the same lectin family as the legume lectins, but also sheds a new light on the specificity, physiological role and evolution of the classical legume lectins.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Phytopathology and Plant Protection, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Willem de Croylaan 42, 3001 Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Weifang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Willy J
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Peumans
authors.forename: Pierre
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Rougé
authors.forename: Claire
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Rossi
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Proost
authors.forename: Jianping
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Els J M
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Van Damme
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D050260:Carbohydrate Metabolism; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D007887:Fabaceae / Q000737:chemistry*; D006384:Hemagglutination; D006801:Humans; D019686:Lamiaceae / Q000737:chemistry*; D008958:Models, Molecular; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D018515:Plant Leaves / Q000737:chemistry*; D037121:Plant Lectins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D011485:Protein Binding; D011487:Protein Conformation; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D013379:Substrate Specificity
chemical_list: D037121:Plant Lectins