Study of lectins from opportunistic pathogens and their interaction with normal human cells.
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| Year of publication | 2019 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
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| Description | Lectins are carbohydrate-binding proteins, highly specific for sugar moieties. They can be involved in the attachment of bacteria and viruses on their host epithelial surfaces, which is one of the most critical step leading to infection. Since the antibiotic strategy is not fully efficient anymore, new ways to cure bacterial infections are under development. One of the possibilities is anti-adhesion/anti-lectin therapy where the lectin can be inhibited by its ligand. For bringing this therapy to the medicine, first we need to identify a binding partner of the lectin and then to provide inhibition tests which approve specificity of lectins. In this work we studied interactions between lectins from Burkholderia cenocepacia and Photorhabdus luminescens, with several different types of normal non-cancerous human cells. Both lectins are fucose specific and calcium independent. The interaction was detected by fluorescence microscopy and for each observed interaction we provided inhibition tests. The lectin from B. cenocepacia interacted with surface glycoproteins of embryonal stem cells and early lung epithelial progenitors but did not bind any ligand on the surface of neural stem cells. In contrary, the lectin from P. luminescens interacted only with mesenchymal stromal cells. The obtained results may bring new promising possibilities to the research and medicine. |
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