Isolation from Gluconacetobacter diazotrophicus cell walls of specific receptors for sugarcane glycoproteins, which act as recognition factors

Glycoproteins from sugarcane stalks have been isolated from plants field-grown by size-exclusion chromatography. Some of these glycoproteins, previously labelled with fluorescein isothiocyanate, are able to bind to the cell wall of the sugarcane endophyte, N2-fixing Gluconacetobacter diazotrophicus, and largely removed after washing the bacterial cells with sucrose. This implies that sugarcane glycoproteins use beta-(1-->2)-fructofuranosyl fructose domains in their glycosidic moiety to bind to specific receptors in the bacterial cell walls. These receptors have been isolated by affinity chromatography on a sugarcane glycoprotein-agarose matrix, desorbed with sucrose and characterized by sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophresisand capillary electrophoresis (CE).