Unlike mammalian GRIFIN, the zebrafish homologue (DrGRIFIN) represents a functional carbohydrate-binding galectin

Negative regulation of neuroblastoma cell growth by carbohydrate-dependent surface binding of galectin-1 and functional divergence from galectin-3.

The cell density-dependent growth inhibition of human SK-N-MC neuroblastoma cells is initiated by increased ganglioside sialidase activity leading to elevated cell surface presentation of ganglioside GM1, a ligand of galectin-1. We herein show that the extent of the cell surface expression of the galectin coincides with marked increases of the sialidase activity. Reverse transcriptase-polymeras...

Thermodynamic binding studies of bivalent oligosaccharides to galectin-1, galectin-3, and the carbohydrate recognition domain of galectin-3.

Galectins are a growing family of animal lectins with common consensus sequences that bind beta-Gal and LacNAc residues. There are at present 14 members of the galectin family; however, certain galectins possess different structures as well as biological properties. Galectin-1 is a dimer of two homologous carbohydrate recognition domains (CRDs) and possesses apoptotic and proinvasive activities...

Functional properties of galectin - 3 . Beyond the sugar binding

The rhesus rotavirus VP4 sialic acid binding domain has a galectin fold with a novel carbohydrate binding site.

Cell attachment and membrane penetration are functions of the rotavirus outer capsid spike protein, VP4. An activating tryptic cleavage of VP4 produces the N-terminal fragment, VP8*, which is the viral hemagglutinin and an important target of neutralizing antibodies. We have determined, by X-ray crystallography, the atomic structure of the VP8* core bound to sialic acid and, by NMR spectroscopy...

The zebrafish homologue of mammalian chimerin Rac-GAPs is implicated in epiboly progression during development.

In this paper, we report an in vivo model for the chimerins, a family of Rac GTPase-activating proteins (Rac-GAPs) that are uniquely regulated by the lipid second messenger diacylglycerol and have been implicated in the control of actin dynamics, migration, and proliferation. We cloned the zebrafish homologue of mammalian alpha2-chimerin (chn1) and determined that it possesses Rac-GAP activity ...