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Updated: Apr 6, 2026

A Miniaturized Glycan Microarray Assay for Assessing Avidity and Specificity of Influenza A Virus Hemagglutinins
Published on: May 29, 2016
Characterization of Receptor Binding Profiles of Influenza A Viruses Using An Ellipsometry-Based Label-Free Glycan
Yiyan Fei1,2, Yung-Shin Sun3,4, Yanhong Li5
1Key Laboratory of Micro and Nano Photonic Structures (Ministry of Education), Department of Optical Science and Engineering, Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Ultra-Precision Optical Manufacturing, Fudan University, 220 Handan Road, Shanghai 200433, China. fyy@fudan.edu.cn.
Abstract:
A key step leading to influenza viral infection is the highly specific binding of a viral spike protein, hemagglutinin (HA), with an extracellular glycan receptor of a host cell. Detailed and timely characterization of virus-receptor binding profiles may be used to evaluate and track the pandemic potential of an influenza virus strain. We demonstrate a label-free glycan microarray assay platform for acquiring influenza virus binding profiles against a wide variety of glycan receptors. By immobilizing biotinylated receptors on a streptavidin-functionalized solid surface, we measured binding curves of five influenza A virus strains with 24 glycans of diverse structures and used the apparent equilibrium dissociation constants (avidity constants, 10-100 pM) as characterizing parameters of viral receptor profiles. Furthermore by measuring binding kinetic constants of solution-phase glycans to immobilized viruses, we confirmed that the glycan-HA affinity constant is in the range of 10 mM and the reaction is enthalpy-driven.

