ABSTRACT
Lectins are widely distributed in nature, including in microorganisms, in plants where they were firstly described, and all species of animal kingdom. The list of molecules that fall into this category grows daily: extracellular matrix components, many cell surface receptors, proteins involved in bacterial and viral pathogenesis are but a few examples. Lectins are interesting proteins not only because they are ubiquitous, but they also could interact with carbohydrates and the interactions wich occur could easily be disrupted. These interactions allow them to be active partners in the multimeric organisation of complexes which take place in the cell physiology. Thus, investigators with interest as diverse as cell-cell interactions, cancer invasion and metastasis, inflammation, and immunology have become concerned with lectins.
