Wesener Darryl A, Dugan Amanda, Kiessling Laura L
Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, USA.
Department of Biochemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 433 Babcock Drive, 53706, USA.
Curr Opin Struct Biol. 2017 Jun;44:168-178. doi: 10.1016/j.sbi.2017.04.002. Epub 2017 May 5.
Human innate immune lectins that recognize microbial glycans can conduct microbial surveillance and thereby help prevent infection. Structural analysis of soluble lectins has provided invaluable insight into how these proteins recognize their cognate carbohydrate ligands and how this recognition gives rise to biological function. In this opinion, we cover the structural features of lectins that allow them to mediate microbial recognition, highlighting examples from the collectin, Reg protein, galectin, pentraxin, ficolin and intelectin families. These analyses reveal how some lectins (e.g., human intelectin-1) can recognize glycan epitopes that are remarkably diverse, yet still differentiate between mammalian and microbial glycans. We additionally discuss strategies to identify lectins that recognize microbial glycans and highlight tools that facilitate these discovery efforts.
能够识别微生物聚糖的人类天然免疫凝集素可进行微生物监测,从而有助于预防感染。可溶性凝集素的结构分析为了解这些蛋白质如何识别其同源碳水化合物配体以及这种识别如何产生生物学功能提供了宝贵的见解。在本观点文章中,我们阐述了凝集素的结构特征,这些特征使其能够介导微生物识别,并重点介绍了来自凝集素、Reg蛋白、半乳糖凝集素、五聚素、纤维胶凝蛋白和intlectin家族的例子。这些分析揭示了一些凝集素(如人类intlectin-1)如何能够识别非常多样的聚糖表位,但仍能区分哺乳动物和微生物聚糖。我们还讨论了识别识别微生物聚糖的凝集素的策略,并重点介绍了有助于这些发现工作的工具。