News · MIT Technology Review
Embedded in the body’s mucosal surfaces, proteins called lectins bind to sugars found on cell surfaces
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Intelectin-2 binds to a sugar molecule called galactose that is found on bacterial membranes, the team found, trapping the bacteria and hindering their growth; the trapped microbes eventually disintegrate, suggesting that the protein can kill them by disrupting their cell membranes.
Key facts
- What’s remarkable is that intelectin-2 operates in two complementary ways
- Intelectin-2 binds to a sugar molecule called galactose that is found on bacterial membranes, the team found, trapping the bacteria and hindering their growth; the trapped microbes eventually
- Because intelectin-2 can neutralize or eliminate pathogens such as Staphylococcus aureus and Klebsiella pneumoniae, which are often difficult to treat with antibiotics, it could someday be adapted
- Embedded in the body’s mucosal surfaces, proteins called lectins bind to sugars found on cell surfaces
Summary
Embedded in the body’s mucosal surfaces, proteins called lectins bind to sugars found on cell surfaces. Because intelectin-2 can neutralize or eliminate pathogens such as Staphylococcus aureus and Klebsiella pneumoniae, which are often difficult to treat with antibiotics, it could someday be adapted as an antimicrobial agent, the researchers say. “Harnessing human lectins as tools to combat antimicrobial resistance opens up a fundamentally new strategy that draws on our own innate immune defenses,” Kiessling says.