Structural analysis of the carbohydrate chain of glycopeptides isolated from Robinia pseudoacacia seed lectins.

Abstract Robinia pseudoacacia seeds contain lectins which are closely related. Pronase digestion of the dimeric and tetrameric lectins, RPA1 and RPA3, gave glycopeptides. The structure of the oligosaccharide was determined by 1 H NMR spectroscopy and carbohydrate determination as α- d -Man p -(1 → 3)-[(β- d -Xylp-(1 → 2)]-[α- d -Man p -(1 → 6)]-β- d -Man p -(1 → 4)-β- d -Glc p NAc-(1 → 4)-[α- l -Fuc p -(1 → 3)]-β- d -Glc p NAc-(1 → 4)-Asn. It appears that the 34-kDa constitutive polypeptide of RPA1 contains 4-5 carbohydrate chains whereas the 30.5-kDa and 29-kDa subunits of RPA3 contain two and one oligosaccharide chains, respectively.