Lectin Arrays and Glycan Arrays for Glycobiology Profiling

Lectin and glycan arrays for glycosylation profiling and carbohydrate-binding screening

Lectin arrays, glycan arrays, and Glycome Arrays give you three ways to profile glycosylation. Together they let you characterise glycosylation patterns on glycoproteins and screen carbohydrate-binding protein interactions at scale.

Lectin arrays immobilise panels of lectins on a solid support. Each lectin has a defined carbohydrate specificity. You apply fluorescently labelled glycoprotein samples, and they bind according to their surface glycan composition. This produces a binding profile that reflects the glycosylation state of the sample.

Glycan arrays take the complementary approach. They print defined carbohydrate structures to capture glycan-binding proteins, such as lectins, antibodies, or pathogens, from solution. Both formats support research into glycoprotein biomarker discovery, glycosylation changes during disease or drug treatment, and host-pathogen carbohydrate interactions.

The Glycome Array adds a third option: antibody-based glycosylation profiling on a single protein of interest. It covers up to 8,000 targets in one run, making it the array of choice when you need deep glycosylation detail on one protein rather than a broad binding profile.

Applications include comparing glycosylation between normal and diseased tissue, and tracking glycan changes in cell line development. You can also screen lectin specificity panels across many of your protein samples at once.

Selecting the Right Glycobiology Array

1. If you want to profile glycosylation on your protein of interest, expose it to multiple lectins at the same time. A lectin array gives you a sugar-binding fingerprint without running individual lectin ELISAs.
2. If you are screening which carbohydrate structures bind a given protein (an antibody, lectin, or pathogen surface protein), use a glycan array. It prints defined sugars for this purpose.
3. If you are monitoring glycosylation changes between two conditions, such as normal versus tumour tissue, run both samples on matched lectin arrays and compare the relative binding intensities across the lectin panel.
4. If you need absolute quantification of a specific glycoprotein rather than a binding profile, use a standard ELISA. A sandwich-based quantitative array that targets that protein directly also works.