Lectin proteins used in blood typing

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6657890/

The ability of lectins to selectively agglutinate red blood cells is utilized for human and animal blood group typing and subtyping.

Due to their ability to bind a wide range of saccharides with high selectivity, lectins have great potential for use in biotechnologies. They are utilized in biosensors for detecting specific markers related to a particular disease [4]. Labeled lectins can serve for histochemical analyses to investigate changes in sugar patterns exhibited on the surfaces of cells and tissues that are often associated with cancer development [5]. Lectins have a potential in treatment of immune response-related diseases and in healing of wounds or in anticancer therapy. Many lectins also exhibit antimicrobial or antiparasitic activities, and some of them also have an insecticidal effect. Currently, lectins are being tested as parts of carbohydrate-based drug-delivery systems [6] and they are used for the development of novel glycomimetic inhibitors, which can be used for the treatment of diseases [7]. All these facts show why it is so important to study lectin-sugar interactions.Lectins are neither antibodies nor enzymes, and they also differ from proteins that are specialized for the transport of free saccharides. They bind a wide range of carbohydrates reversibly and with a very high specificity, therefore they participate in recognition and interactions at the cell level.