Abstact

The three crystal structures reported here provide details of the interactions of mannose and the mannosyl-α-1,3-mannose component of a pentamannose with banana lectin and evidence for the binding of glucosyl-α-1,2-glucose to the lectin. The known structures involving the lectin include a complex with glucosyl-β-1,3-glucose. Modeling studies on the three disaccharide complexes with the reducing end and the nonreducing end at the primary binding site are also provided here. The results of the X-ray and modeling studies show that the disaccharides with an α-1,3 linkage prefer to have the nonreducing end at the primary binding site, whereas the reducing end is preferred at the site when the linkage is β-1,3 in mannose/glucose-specific β-prism I fold lectins. In the corresponding galactose-specific lectins, however, α-1,3-linked disaccharides cannot bind the lectin with the nonreducing end at the primary binding site on account of steric clashes with an aromatic residue that occurs only when the lectin is galactose-specific. Molecular dynamics simulations based on the known structures involving banana lectin enrich the information on lectin-carbohydrate interactions obtained from crystal structures. They demonstrate that conformational selection as well as induced fit operate when carbohydrates bind to banana lectin.