Reading a glycocode - mechanism and function of galectin-glycan interactions

TL;DRAbstract

There is an intensive interest in characterising the structure and function of galectins, which is not surprising given their many important cellular functions and strong implications in human disease. Understanding the mechanisms involved in galectin functions will help to find selective and novel strategies for disease treatment and diagnosis. A key to this lies in their carbohydrate binding specificity and the multivalent effects taking place on a cell surface in their presence. The aim of this thesis was to deepen our understanding of galectin recognition and correlate it to biological function. In paper I we altered the fine specificity of galectin-3 using site directed mutagenesis, and evaluated the effect of this in two biological systems: the ability of extracellular galectin-3 to activate neutrophil leucocytes and intracellular galectin-3 to direct intracellular targeting. A clear correlation was found between fine specificity, as measured with glycan array and fluorescence an

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