Study of PHL lectin from Photorabdus asymbiotica to revealingits role in pathogenesis

Proteins and glycoproteins, which specifically recognize and reversibly bind glycoconjugates, form a very important group called lectins. Lectins play a crucial role in many physiological and pathophysiological processes including immunological reactions or interactions between tissue’s cells. Besides these functions they also play a very important role in interactions between a pathogen and its host - they can mediate the first step of an expansion of infection. Currently, lectins become essential tools in the biological and medical research, i.e. to follow agglutination of erythrocytes, detection and characterization of different saccharide composition of glycoconjugates, mitogenic stimulation of lymphocytes, inhibition of fungal, bacterial and viral growth, etc.