Quaternary structure of UEA-II, the chitobiose specific lectin from gorse

The chitobiose specific Ulex europaeus lectin II crystallizes in space group P3(2)21 with unit-cell dimensions a = b = 105.54, c = 176.26 Angstrom. The asymmetric unit contains a complete lectin tetramer. The crystals were shown to diffract to 4.5 Angstrom on a rotating-anode source and to 2.7 Angstrom at the Daresbury synchrotron source. Molecular replacement and subsequent rigid-body refinement using data to 4.5 Angstrom yielded a solution corresponding to a tetramer very similar to that of phytohemagglutinin-L and soybean agglutinin. The monomers in the Ulex lectin tetramer are rotated similar to 5 degrees compared with the phytohemagglutinin-L and soybean agglutinin structures.