Characterization of carbohydrate combining sites of Bryohealin,an algal lectin from <Emphasis Type="Italic">Bryopsis plumosa</Emphasis>

Bryohealin is a lectin involved in the wound-healing process of the marine green alga Bryopsis plumosa. In the previous purification study, it has been shown that lectin was composed of two identical subunits of 27 kDa, cross-linked by disulfide bond, and showed binding specificity to N-acetyl-d-glucosamine and N-acetyl-d-galactosamine (GlcNAc and GalNAc, respectively). To determine if the lectin recognize the two different sugars at the same binding domain, the carbohydrate binding sites of Bryohealin was analyzed using chromatography and chemical modification methods. Results showed that the same binding site of the lectin was responsible for the recognition of two sugars, GalNAc as well as GlcNAc. Chemical modification studies showed that hemagglutinating activities of Bryohealin were not affected by modification of histidine, tryptophan, aspartic acid, and glutamic acid. When arginine residues were modified with 1,2-cyclohexanedione, the activity of Bryohealin rapidly decreased. The sugar binding sites remained intact when the lectin was treated with inhibitory sugars (0.2 M GalNAc and/or GlcNAc) prior to 1,2-cyclohexanedione treatment. The sugar binding domain of Bryohealin was predicted from the MALDI-TOF analysis and the full cDNA sequence of the lectin gene.