Lectins and their application to clinical microbiology

Abstract

Lectins are generally associated with plant or animal components, selectively bind carbohydrates, and interact with procaryotic and eucaryotic cells. Lectins have various specificities that are associated with their ability to interact with acetylaminocarbohydrates, aminocarbohydrates, sialic acids, hexoses, pentoses, and as other carbohydrates. Microbial surfaces generally contain many of the sugar residues that react with lectins. Lectins are presently used in the clinical laboratory to type blood cells and are used in a wide spectrum of applications, including, in part, as carriers of chemotherapeutic agents, as mitogens, for fractionation of animal cells, and for investigations of cellular surfaces. Numerous studies have shown that lectins can be used to identify rapidly certain microorganisms isolated from a clinical specimen or directly in a clinical specimen. Lectins have been demonstrated to be important diagnostic reagents in the major realms of clinical microbiology. Thus, they have been applied in bacteriology, mycology, mycobacteriology, and virology for the identification and/or differentiation of various microorganisms. Lectins have been used successfully as epidemiologic as well as taxonomic markers of specific microorganisms. Lectins provide the clinical microbiologist with cost-effective and potential diagnostic reagents. This review describes the applications of lectins in clinical microbiology.

Lectins (hemagglutinins) in the gut of the important disease vectors

“…Further investigation of proteins able to agglutinate red blood cells (RBCs) has significantly been improved by experimental techniques, analytical and preparative methods in hematology, immunology, virology, and lately even in parasitology and molecular biology (Sharon & Lis, 1989;Slifkin & Doyle, 1990;Doyle & Slifkin, 1994;Jacobson & Doyle, 1996). The term lectin came from latin verb « legere » and reflects an ability of particular proteins (hemagglutinins) to aggregate different kinds of RBCs (Boyd & Shapleigh, 1954).…”

The application of species specific DNA-targeted probes and fluorescently tagged lectin to differentiate several species of <i>Pseudo-nitzschia</i> (Bacillophyceae) in Chinhae Bay, Korea

“…Lectins are differentiated by their specific carbohydrate affinity for glucose/mannose, galactose/Nacetyl-D-galactosamine, N-acetyl-glucosamine, fucose or sialic acids (Slifkin and Doyle, 1990). Because of their ability to bind with different carbohydrates at the cell surface, fluorescently tagged lectins have been used as probes for species identification (Costas and Lopez-Rodas, 1994;Rhodes et al, 1995;Cho et al, 1998;Fraga et al, 1998).…”

Lectinomics I. Relevance of exogenous plant lectins in biomedical diagnostics

“…They have a role in the clinical laboratory identification and taxonomic classification of many microorganisms, in addition to epidemiological monitoring of microbial and viral agents. Concurrently, Slifkin (Slifkin & Doyle 1990) illustrated that agglutination technique and the Con A were predominantly used in the reviewed lectin diagnostic applications.…”