Immobilization of sugars in supermacroporous cryogels for the purification of lectins by affinity chromatography.

Lectins are glycoproteins that bind to carbohydrates or glycoconjugates by specific interactions. The specificity of lectins to various carbohydrates is a determinant factor in the choice of ligand for the chromatographic matrix when using chromatography as a lectin purification technique. In this work, the immobilization of three different aminated carbohydrates on the surface of macroporous polymeric cryogels was evaluated.

Development of supermacroporous monolithic adsorbents for purifying lectins by affinity with sugars.

Affinity techniques are frequently used to purify biocompounds, because of specific interactions observed in many cases. One example are the lectins, proteins connected in a reversible manner and specific to carbohydrates or sugar-containing molecules. Four different methods were investigated (epoxy, Schiff base, glutaraldehyde and ethylenediamine) to immobilize the carbohydrate N-acetyl-d-glucosamine (d-GlcNAc) on the surface of supermacroporous cryogels made for lectin purification.