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This work provides evidence of a physical instance in which some proteins that are usually inactivated under strong chaotropic conditions may become fully resistant through the occupancy of their binding sites with suitable ligands. In this regard, we found that Moluccella laevis lectin remains stable in the presence of denaturant concentrations of urea when an appropriate saccharide is bound to the protein (Alperin, D.M., Latter, H., Lis, H., and Sharon, N. (1992) Biochem. J. 285, 1-4). Extending this finding, we now demonstrate that the occupancy of the ligand binding sites of concanavalin A (Con A) with appropriate carbohydrates completely prevents the denaturation course elicited by 8 M urea at pH 7.4. In addition, the protecting efficiency of the saccharides was shown to be directly related to their specificities for the lectin. The observed saccharide protection follows the order:methyl alpha-D-mannopyranoside > methyl alpha-D-glucopyr-anoside > mannose > fructose > glucose. Concomitantly, the active tetrameric lectin with a molecular mass of approximately 105 kDa is preserved in 8 M urea when methyl alpha-D-mannopyranoside (100 mM) is present in the medium.

Quantitative aspects of the pathway leading to the formation of asparagine-linked oligosaccharides were investigated in rat cerebral cortex. Steady-state labeling conditions were achieved with [2-3H]mannose by developing a micromethod of incubation of cerebral cortex particles in the presence of physiological concentrations of glucose (1 g/L). The rate of [2-3H]mannose uptake and incorporation into protein was markedly affected when the concentration of glucose was lowered to 0.05 g/L. It was found that in the presence of glucose (1 g/L), a minor fraction of the utilized [2-3H]mannose is used in glycoprotein formation and the remaining labeled sugar enters the other major metabolic pathways, generating tritiated water which is rapidly exchanged with that of the medium. Under these conditions, the intracellular isotopic dilution of [2-3H]mannose-labeled precursors was calculated to be about 11.5-fold. These data allow determination of the rate of the net transfer of mannose into proteins. Comparison of the rate of glycosylation between 5- and 30-day-old cerebral cortex revealed a striking difference: 2.1 and 0.3 ng of mannose/mg protein/h, respectively.