Development of recombinant Aleuria aurantia lectins with altered binding specificities to fucosylated glycans

► Linkage specific changes in fucosylation have been associated with cancer. ► The Aleuria aurantia lectin (AAL) can bind fucose but has limited linkage specificity. ► Through site-directed mutagenesis we developed AALs with altered binding affinities. ► These AAL molecules could be used to determine fucose changes in cancer. Changes in glycosylation have long been associated with disease. While there are many methods to detect changes in glycosylation, plant derived lectins are often used to determine changes on specific proteins or molecules of interest. One change in glycosylation that has been observed by us and by others is a disease or antigen associated increase in fucosylation on N-linked glycans. To measure this change, the fucose binding Aleuria aurantia lectin (AAL) is often utilized in plate and solution based assays. AAL is a mushroom derived lectin that contains five fucose binding sites that preferentially bind fucose linked (α-1,3, α-1,2, α-,4, and α-1,6) to N-acetyllactosamine related structures. Recently, several reports by us and by others have indicated that specific fucose linkages found on certain serum biomarker glycoprotein’s are more associated with disease than others. Taking a site-directed mutagenesis approach, we have created a set of recombinant AAL proteins that display altered binding affinities to different analytes containing various fucose linkages.