Lectin affinity chromatography

This unit describes the use of lectins for preparative glycoprotein purification. Con A-Sepharose and WGA-agarose are used for convenience and availability. Instructions are given for a small-scale pilot procedure to test for lectin binding and to determine elution conditions. There are many variations on the basic procedure in the literature, but all use the same principles: bind the protein to immobilized lectin through its sugar chain, wash away unbound protein, and elute bound protein with a simple sugar that resembles the sugar ligand of the bound protein.