Bp. Chatterjee et H. Ahmed, LECTINS FROM PLANT AND ANIMAL - CARBOHYDRATE SPECIFICITY - UNITY IN DIVERSITY AND DIVERSITY IN UNITY, Biochemical archives, 14(1), 1998, pp. 1-15
Lectins, cell agglutinating, sugar binding proteins of nonimmune origi
n are omnipresent in all forms of living matter including viruses and
bacteria. Their unique property to bind with carbohydrates leads them
to use in the widened area of biological sciences including medicine.
Multiple lectins often occuring in the same source have varying carboh
ydrate specificity. Some lectins preferably show binding specificity w
ith oligosaccharides. Identical specificity of the lectins belonging t
o different families is a unique feature of plant lectins while C-Type
lectins, a major group of animal lectins from diverse sources exhibit
very less resemblance in their carbohydrate specificity. A limited di
versity in carbohydrate specificity has been observed in S-Type lectin
s, galectins.