Historical and practical aspects of development of lectin microarray technique

Abstract

Lectin microarray is an emerging technology that has undergone significant development over the past decade. It facilitates the rapid and highly sensitive profiling of glycans in a high-throughput manner. Unlike conventional techniques, such as mass spectrometry and multidimensional high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) mapping, the lectin microarray method does not determine the precise structures or compositions of glycans, but rather it provides essential information concerning the complex features of glycans (e.g., glycoproteins) in terms of binding patterns to a panel of lectins with different carbohydrate-binding specificities. The method is highly advantageous for the analysis of crude samples, such as cell/tissue extracts and body fluids (e.g., sera, bile) containing glycoproteins and even intact cells. In contrast to other methods, it does not require the prior liberation of glycans from core proteins. Practical applications of the lectin microarray have also been developed for use with many target molecules/cells/tissues. The most advanced applications can be found in cancer-related biomarker investigation, stem cell characterization and evaluation, and biological drug development. Here, a lectin microarray system developed in the author’s group is described; this system adopts a unique detection principle that provides for an easy-to-perform, sensitive, and reproducible glycan analysis approach undertaken with a fully commercialized instrument.