Novel Fold and Carbohydrate Specificity of the Potent Anti-HIV Cyanobacterial Lectin from Oscillatoria agardhii

Oscillatoria agardhii agglutinin (OAA) is a recently discovered cyanobacterial lectin that exhibits potent anti-HIV activity. Up to now, only its primary structure and carbohydrate binding data have been available. To elucidate the structural basis for the antiviral mechanism of OAA, we determined the structure of this lectin by x-ray crystallography at 1.2 angstrom resolution and mapped the specific carbohydrate recognition sites of OAA by NMR spectroscopy. The overall architecture of OAA comprises 10 beta-strands that fold into a single, compact, beta-barrel-like domain, creating a unique topology compared with all known protein structures in the Protein Data Bank. OAA sugar binding was tested against Man-9 and various disaccharide components of Man-9. Two symmetric carbohydrate-binding sites were located on the protein, and a preference for Man alpha(1-6) Man-linked sugars was found. Altogether, our structural results explain the antiviral activity OAA and add to the growing body of knowledge about antiviral lectins.