title: Lectins: a primer for histochemists and cell biologists.
abstract: An experimental observation on selecting binding partners underlies the introduction of the term 'lectin'. Agglutination of erythrocytes depending on their blood-group status revealed the presence of activities in plant extracts that act in an epitope-specific manner like antibodies. As it turned out, their binding partners on the cell surface are carbohydrates of glycoconjugates. By definition, lectins are glycan-specific (mono- or oligosaccharides presented by glycoconjugates or polysaccharides) receptors, distinguished from antibodies, from enzymes using carbohydrates as substrates and from transporters of free saccharides. They are ubiquitous in Nature and structurally widely diversified. More than a dozen types of folding pattern have evolved for proteins that bind glycans. Used as tool, this capacity facilitates versatile mapping of glycan presence so that plant/fungal and also animal/human lectins have found a broad spectrum of biomedical applications. The functional pairing with physiological counterreceptors is involved in a wide range of cellular activities from cell adhesion, glycoconjugate trafficking to growth regulation and lets lectins act as sensors/effectors in host defense.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Physiological Chemistry, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, 80539, Munich, Germany.
authors.forename: Joachim C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Manning
authors.affiliation: Chemical and Physical Biology, Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas, CSIC, 28040, Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: Antonio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Romero
authors.affiliation: Institute of Anatomy, Histology and Embryology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, 80539, Munich, Germany.
authors.forename: Felix A
authors.initials: FA
authors.lastname: Habermann
authors.affiliation: Institute of Physiological Chemistry, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, 80539, Munich, Germany.
authors.forename: Gabriel
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: García Caballero
authors.affiliation: Institute of Physiological Chemistry, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, 80539, Munich, Germany.
authors.forename: Herbert
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kaltner
authors.affiliation: Institute of Physiological Chemistry, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, 80539, Munich, Germany. gabius@tiph.vetmed.uni-muenchen.de.
authors.forename: Hans-Joachim
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Gabius
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003585:Cell Biology; D006031:Glycosylation; D006801:Humans; D037102:Lectins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000276:immunology*; D017510:Protein Folding
chemical_list: D037102:Lectins
keywords: Agglutinin; Glycoprotein; Glycosylation; Protein fold; Sialylation