Metazoan Soluble beta-Galactoside-Binding Lectins, Galectins: Methods for Purification, Characterization of Their Carbohydrate-Binding Specificity, and Probing Their Ligands

Galectins are a family of soluble beta-galactoside-binding proteins that share conserved carbohydrate recognition domain. Galectins are found in most multicellular organisms and exert various biological functions by binding to the surface glycoconjugates as lectins. In this chapter, we describe the general methods of purification of galectins, quality control of purified galectins, some example methods of evaluating their carbohydrate-binding activity, and use of galectin to search or detect galectin ligands as well as a series of precautions for the usage of galectins.