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Screening of Aspergillus species for occurrence of lectins and their characterization
Author(s) -
Singh Ram Sarup,
Tiwary Ashok Kumar,
Bhari Ranjeeta
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
journal of basic microbiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.58
H-Index - 54
eISSN - 1521-4028
pISSN - 0233-111X
DOI - 10.1002/jobm.200700314
Subject(s) - lectin , biochemistry , agglutination (biology) , biology , aspergillus niger , melibiose , microbiology and biotechnology , raffinose , chemistry , sucrose , antigen , genetics
Ten species of Aspergillus were screened for occurrence of lectins. Each of the species was investigated for the occurrence of extracellular, surface‐bound and intracellular lectin activities. As many as four species namely, Aspergillus niger , Aspergillus versicolor , Aspergillus rugulosus and Aspergillus nidulans , were found to possess intracellular lectin activities, while none of the species showed extracellular or surface‐bound lectin activities. Each of the lectin was characterized with respect to blood group and carbohydrate specificities. All the lectins were found to agglutinate human erythrocytes, irrespective of their blood group and pig erythrocytes. However, they did not show agglutination with sheep or goat erythrocytes. Of the various carbohydrates tested, all lectins were found to be specific for inulin, mucin, asialofetuin, N‐acetyl galactosamine, melibiose, D‐ribose, L‐fucose, D‐arabinose, D‐sucrose and D‐mannitol. The minimum inhibitory concentration of each of the specific sugars was also determined. The lectins were partially purified using ammonium sulfate precipitation technique. Each of the lectin was found to be precipitated at 40–50% saturation of ammonium sulfate, yielding about 80% of lectin activity. (© 2008 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)