Differential concanavalin A binding of cystic fibrosis and normal liver alpha-L-fucosidase.

A novel technique has been employed to demonstrate that alpha-L- fucosidase purified 
from cystic fibrosis and control livers exhibits differential binding to the 
lectin Concanavalin A. The concentration of alpha-CH3-mannoside necessary to prevent 50% 
binding of alpha-L-fucosidase to Concanavalin A is considerably lower for the 
cystic fibrosis enzyme (13.5 vs. 33.3 mM). Comparable results were found 
when binding studies were done on crude supernatant alpha-L-fucosidase from 8 
cystic fibrosis and 8 control livers (5.6 plus or minus 0.4 
mM and 13.2 plus or minus 3.4 respectively), without any overlap 
of values between the cystic fibrosis and control livers. These results 
suggest that comparative lectin binding studies on cystic fibrosis and normal 
glycoproteins from readily available tissues might result in an assay for 
detecting the cystic fibrosis genotype. 