Engineered High‐Specificity Affinity Reagents for the Detection of Glycan Sialylation

Abstract

As alternatives to established carbohydrate‐detection reagents (antibodies and lectins), Lectenz Bio is developing engineered proteins (known as Lectenz®), that target glycan sequences for with existing reagents either do not exist or are sub‐optimal. Lectenz® are engineered proteins derived from catalytically inactivated glycan‐processing enzymes that have been optimized for high affinity towards specific glycan sequences. The conversion of such enzymes into affinity reagents is facilitated by computationally‐guided directed evolution. Lectenz® are being developed for a variety of glycan detection and enrichment applications including affinity chromatography, Western blot, and immunohistochemistry. Here we demonstrate the performance and specificity of two novel sialic acid recognizing Lectenz® engineered from a sialidase enzyme.