Lectin-carbohydrate complex evaluation by chemiluminescence

In order to characterize the affinity between specific carbohydrate-binding proteins such as lectins, a model is proposed to study these interactions using a polysaccharide membrane to simulate such adsorption. Here, lectin-carbohydrate interactions were chemiluminescently investigated using lectins conjugated to acridinium ester (AE) and polysaccharides composed of their respective specific carbohydrates. The lectin-AE conjugates were incubated with discs (0.0314-0.6358 cm2) of phytagel, chitosan and carrageenan. The complex formation chemiluminescently detected followed the Langmuir isotherm from which constants were estimated. The association constant (Ka) and maximum binding sites on the membranes were 2.4 × 10−7 M−1 ± 0.8 × 10−7 M−1 and 1.3 × 10−3 mol. mg−1 ± 0.3 × 10−3 mol. mg−1 (Con A); 0.9 × 10−6 M−1 ± 0.4 × 10−6 M−1 and 0.021 × 10−3 mol. mg−1 ± 0.003 × 10−3 mol. mg−1 (WGA) and 2.0 × 10−6 M−1 ± 0.9 × 10−6 M−1 and 0.069 × 10−3 mol. mg−1 ± 0.010 × 10−3 mol. mg−1 (PNA). The proposed model might be useful to study binding affinity and estimate the amount of binding not limited by the sugar content in the membrane.