A group from Universidade Federal do Ceará, Departamento de Engenharia de Pesca, Laboratório de Biotecnologia Marinha, Brazil, etc., has reported about a new lectin (HiL) isolated from the tropical sponge Haliclona (Reniera) implexiformis showing antimicrobial effect.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37075356/
Marine sponges are multicellular, sessile and filtering organisms, belonging to the phylum Porifera, the oldest of the Metazoans. More than 8,500 species found in marine and freshwater ecosystems have been described。A lectin from the marine sponge Haliclona (Reniera) implexiformis was isolated by affinity chromatography on Sepharose™ matrix, and HiL showed specificity for galactose and its derivatives.
It seems that the recognition of glycans in the bacterial membrane by lectins may cause an inhibitory effect in the biofilm formation. Some studies have shown that galactose-binding lectins may recognize glycans in bacterial surface and distinguish bacteria Gram-positive from Gram-negative bacteria。The mechanism of activity of lectins on biofilm formation is not yet fully determined, but as shown below, HiL showed antimicrobial activity potential to prevent infections mainly caused by Staphylococcus spp (no antimicrobial activity for E. coli: Gram-negative bacteria).
The vertical axis shows the total mass of biofilmms quantified by measuring the intensity of crystal violet stain