About the Lectin

The affinity purified lectin isolated from peanuts is an anti-T agglutinin with a specificity for terminal β-galactose. The T-antigen, Gal β(1,3)GalNac, is a more potent inhibitor of lectin activity than any of the monosaccharides tested. Lactose, Gal β(1,4)Glucose, is also a strong inhibitor of the lectin, indicating that the terminal non-reducing β-galactose is of primary importance. Glucose and GalNAc by themselves are not considered inhibitors of the lectin. In addition to its increased reactivity to neuraminidase treated human erythrocytes, PNA will also react strongly with a number of desialylated glycoproteins. They include fetuin, human blood group NN or MM antigens, α-1-acid glycoprotein, and glycophorin 1 . The lectin is mitogenic for human blood peripheral lymphocytes and rat lymphocytes only after neuraminidase treatment of the cells 2 . Receptors for PNA are widespread in human tissues, however each tissue displays a specific binding pattern 3 . PNA has been used in a number of biochemical applications including the clinical determination of T-polyagglutinability of human erythrocytes 4 , detection of Hodgkin and Reed-Sternberg cells in diagnostic histology 5 , histochemical demonstration of neuraminidase effects in pneumococcal meningitis 6 , in the differential diagnosis of neoplastic and reactive follicles 7 , in recognition of aveolar macrophages in respiratory disease 8 , and in identification of high metastatic melanoma cell lines 9 .

REFERENCES

  1. Lotan, R., et al. (1975). J. Biol. Chem. 250 (21): 8518.
  2. Novogrodsky, N., et al. (1975). J. Immunol. 115: 1243.
  3. Cooper, H.S. (1984). Human Pathology. 15: 904-906.
  4. Bird, G.N. and Wingham, J. (1971). Scand. J. Haematol.8: 307- 308.
  5. Moller, P. (1982). Virchows Arch. 396: 313-317.
  6. Vierbuchen, M. and Klein, P.J. (1983). Laboratory Inv.48 (2): 181.
  7. Ree, H.J. and Hsu, Su-ming. (1983). Cancer. 51: 1631.
  8. Meyer, K. C., et al. (1993) Amer. Rev. Respir. Disease 148 : 1325-1334.
  9. Ota, T., et al. (1993) Oncology Research 5 : 235-243

Product Characteristics
Buffer 0.01M Phosphate – 0.15M NaCl, pH 7.2-7.4
Blood Group Non-specific after neuraminidase treatment.
Activity Less than 1 μg/ml will agglutinate human erythrocytes after neuraminidase treatment of the cells.
Inhibitory Carbohydrate Lactose > β-D-Galactose.
Molecular Weight The lectin is a tetramer of 110,000 Da. A single band of 28.000 Da is predominant by SDS-PAGE. It is possible to observe weakly staining bands of MW = 55,000 and 110,000, which represent incompletely dissociated lectin.