Methods for Purifying Datura stramonium Agglutinin and Producing Recombinant Agglutinin Protein in a Heterologous Plant Host.

Datura stramonium seeds contain at least three chitin-binding isolectins as homo- or heterodimers of A and B subunits. This lectin has been used for the detection and isolation of sugar chains with N-acetyllactosaminyl structures on highly branched N-glycans. In terms of future diagnostic use, the development of a recombinant lectin will be the most effective approach for producing homogeneous lectin preparations. This chapter presents details of the procedure used for lectin purification and also describes a method that can be used for producing active recombinant homodimeric BB-isolectin in Arabidopsis plants.