Structural characterization and hypoglycemic activity of lectin red seaweed Amansia multifida C. lamourox

• Main Author: Jacilane Ximenes Mesquita
• Publication Date: 2010
• Format: Master thesis
• Language: por
• Source: Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da UFC
• Download full: http://www.teses.ufc.br/tde_busca/arquivo.php?codArquivo=8157
• topic: atividade hipoglicemiante; lectina; algas marinhas; BIOQUIMICA

The function of a protein is determined by its structure. As a result, the structural study of potentially active biomolecules can lead to a better understanding of its mechanism of action, as their biological activities. Thus, this study aimed to purify and structurally characterize the lectin from red seaweed Amansia multifida protein fraction which has a potential hypoglycemic. The protein fraction (F 0/70) was subjected to anion- exchange chromatography on a column of DEAE - Sephacel to elution of the first peak (PI). This peak was selected as the hemagglutination activity was obtained then the lectin from A. multifida, verified by SDS - PAGE. For two - dimensional electrophoresis were detected five isoforms. The N-terminal sequence (20 amino acid) showed no sim ilarity to any sequence deposited in databases, suggesting that it does not belong to any group of algae known lectins. The lectin was structurally characterized by spectroscopic techniques of circular dichroism (CD) and fluorescence. The CD analysis showe d that the lectin was composed of 4% α - helix, 43% beta sheet, 21% turn and 32% unordered structure, according to the deconvolution program Contin. It was also verified by CD, the structural stability of the protein against the extremes of pH and different temperatures. When subjected to temperature of 10 - 85 ÂC was found that the protein showed 50% of the denaturation in 40.2ÂC, being completely denatured at 85ÂC. Such a distortion was shown to be irreversible, since after being incubated again under native conditions, the lectin was not able to recover its original structure. Extremes of pH (3.0 and 11) did not alter the secondary structure of the protein. For the fluorescence data read out at 280 and 295 nm, showed the presence of aromatic amino acids that fluoresce, such as tryptophan and tyrosine. Fluorescence spectra measured, even in the face of extremes of pH, showed no major changes that could reflect structural changes in order not to shift the peak of the emission measurements. Biological assays of hypoglycemic activity carried out with the F 0/70, containing the lectin from the algae showed that it was able to significantly reduce the blood glucose level of animals with diabetic state induced by alloxan.