Bioinformatics analysis cloning expression and character Ization of selected C type lectins

Abstract

Lectins are a diverse family of proteins found in every kingdom of life. They were first discovered in the 19th century. C -type lectins is a large family of proteins. Extensive literature review of the Ctype lectins was undertaken and their properties, classification, roles and uses were summarized. The C-type lectins were classified by Drickamer, first in 7 and then 12 classes. These classes were further expanded to 17 by Zelensky and Gready but progress has since been stalled on classification and today, there are seventeen classes of C-type lectins in vertebrates only. Bacterial, plant and other taxonomies, which have many predicted C-type lectins were catalogued and analysed. Their motifs and architectures were analysed. The bacterial, fungal and plant C-type lectins are an understudied family of proteins. Machine learning method to identify C-type lectins from unknown protein sequence was developed, tested and published. High precision and recall were obtained by the support vector machine algorithm after parameter tuning. An attempt to clone 4 C-type lectins was made, one from Leishmania, another from humans and two from bacteria. The protein from Gardnerella vaginalis was obtained in soluble form. This protein was characterised further. The results were compiled in form of thesis. newline