Institute of Organic and Pharmaceutical Chemistry
The National Hellenic Research Foundation
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Carbohydrate recognition
Lectins are a superfamily of carbohydrate-specific proteins widely distributed in nature that mediate cellular recognition. Lectins are defined as carbohydrate-binding, (glyco)proteins, different from immunoglobulins that have no enzymic activity towards their carbohydrate ligand. Knowledge of the structural basis of the carbohydrate specificity of lectins is important in understanding their role(s) in cellular recognition events. The recognition mechanism and the fine specificity of lectins towards complex carbohydrate moieties of cell surfaces has been the focus of our research efforts. The main goal is to exploit the fine glycan specificity of various lectins and to use them as biosensors to target specific cells for the development of novel prognostic and diagnostic tools for cancer. Lectins also have the potential to mediate drug targeting and delivering to their site of action.
In nature, an enormous range of protein-carbohydrate interactions is mediated by lectins. Increasingly, members of this diverse family of proteins are being applied as useful tools in the growing fields of biotechnology and medical diagnostics, since they have been found to interact with animal, plant and bacterial targets as well as medically relevant ligands including human cell surface cancer markers. Thus, lectins have been used as tools for the detections of disease–related alterations, blood group typing and definitions of secretor status, quantification of aberrations of cell surface glycan presentation, and recently as cell markers for diagnostic purposes including infectious agents (viruses, bacteria, fungi, parasites, etc).
The project targets lectins from Sclerotium rolfssi,
Agrocybe cylidracea, Arisaema flavum, Alocasia macrorrhiza
and the human galectin-12 to elucidate the structural basis
of their fine carbohydrate specificity
Research Interests:
Control of glycogen metabolism
Phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase
Carbohydrate
recognition
Human TAFs9 proteins
Xylanases and feruloyl esterases
