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Journal:Plant Toxins

Abstract:As part of their defense system different plant species each express a diverse set of defense proteins, among them proteins with lectin domains. The whole group of plant lectins assembles all proteins that have the ability to recognize and bind specific carbohydrate structures. Based on the sequence and the conformation of the carbohydrate recognition domains several lectin families are distinguished. Although many lectins are composed only of carbohydrate binding domains, several lectins are chimeric proteins composed of a lectin domain and another unrelated domain. In some cases this second domain can be considered as a toxin domain. This chapter focuses on different types of plant AB toxins and their physiological importance in the battle against pathogens and predators. Most information is available on type 2 ribosome-inactivating proteins in which an N-glycosidase domain is linked through a disulfide bridge to a lectin domain. More recently chimeric proteins consisting of one or more lectin domains and a dirigent domain or aerolysin domain have also been discovered. Although these AB toxins all consist of a lectin domain and a toxin domain, the nature of the toxin and the lectin domain are different resulting in proteins with different carbohydrate binding properties as well as a different mode of action for toxicity.

Indexed by:Other

Discipline:Natural Science

Document Type:M

Translation or Not:no