Investigation of sera from various species by using lectin affinity arrays and scanning ellipsometry

Serum proteins of different species and of different human blood groups exhibit various protein glycosylation patterns. Sera from human, pig, sheep and guinea pig have been applied to a panel of eight different lectins immobilized on a gold wafer. The biorecognition has been evaluated with scanning ellipsometry and the two-dimensional matrices obtained have been treated with image analysis and MVDA for evaluation. The results showed a clear difference in protein binding pattern between the different species and thereby separation of the different sera could be made. Dendograms indicate that human and pig sera are the most related of the four different sera investigated.