Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UNIPROT:P17931 (galectin-3)
 2,860 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Galectin-3 is a member of the galectin family and belongs to a group of soluble beta-galactoside-binding animal lectins. The molecule is expressed by neural and nonneural cells intra- (cytoplasm and nucleus) as well as extra-cellularly (plasma membrane and extracellular space). By using an in vitro cell-substratum adhesion assay, we have addressed the question whether galectin-3 present in the extracellular milieu may support the adhesion and/or neurite outgrowth of neural cells in a manner analogous to cell adhesion molecules. Galectin-3 was immobilized as a substratum and various cell types, N2A (neuroblastoma), PC12 (pheochromocytoma), and TSC (transformed Schwann cells) cell lines, neural cells from early postnatal mouse cerebellum, and dorsal root ganglion neurons from newborn mice were allowed to adhere to the lectin. Here we show that all cell types studied specifically adhered to galectin-3 by the following criteria: 1) the number of adherent cells was dependent on the galectin-3 concentration used for coating; 2) adhesion of cells to galectin-3, but not to collagen type I or laminin was inhibited by polyclonal antibodies to galectin-3; 3) upon addition of asialofetuin (a polyvalent carrier of terminal beta-galactosides) to the cell suspension prior to the adhesion assay, cell adhesion to galectin-3 was inhibited in a dose-dependent manner; and 4) cell adhesion to galectin-3 was abolished by treatment of cells with endo-beta-galactosidase. In addition, the adhesion of dorsal root ganglion neurons to galectin-3 could be inhibited by lactose. Notably, substratum-bound galectin-3 promoted the outgrowth of neurites from dorsal root ganglia explants and this neurite outgrowth promoting activity could be inhibited by polyclonal antibodies to galectin-3.
 ...
PMID:Galectin-3 promotes neural cell adhesion and neurite growth. 984 55

Glycosylation of proteins greatly affects their structure and function, but traditional genomics and transcriptomics are not able to precisely capture tissue- or species-specific glycosylation patterns. We describe here a novel approach to link different "omics" data based on exhaustive quantitative glycomics of murine dermis and epidermis. We first examined the dermal and epidermal N-glycome of mouse by a recently established glycoblotting technique. We found that the Galalpha1-3Gal epitope was solely expressed in epidermis tissue and was preferentially attached to adhesion molecules in a glycosylation site-specific manner. Clarified glycomic and protemic information combined with publicly available microarray data sets allowed us to identify galectin-3 as a receptor of Galalpha1-3Gal epitope. These findings provide mechanistic insight into the causal connection between the genotype and the phenotype seen in alpha3GalT-1-deficient mice and transgenic mice expressing endo-beta-galactosidase C. Because humans do not possess the Galalpha1-3Gal structure on their tissues, we further examined the human dermal and epidermal N-glycome. Comparative glycomics revealed that the GalNAcbeta1-4GlcNAc (N,N'-diacetyllactosediamine) epitope, instead of the Galalpha1-3Gal epitope, was highly expressed in human epidermis.
 ...
PMID:Glycosylation specific for adhesion molecules in epidermis and its receptor revealed by glycoform-focused reverse genomics. 1882 76