Lectins are carbohydrate-interacting proteins playing a pivotal role in multiple physiological and developmental aspects of all organisms. They can specifically interact with different bacterial and viral pathogens through the carbohydrate-recognition domains (CRD). In addition, lectins are also of biotechnological interest because of their potential use as biosensor for capturing and identification of bacterial species. In this work, we have characterized the bacterial agglutination properties of three C-type lectins from the Lepidoptera Spodoptera exigua. One of these lectins, BLL2, was able to agglutinate cells from a broad range of bacterial species at an extremely low concentration, becoming a very interesting protein to be used as biosensor or other biotechnological applications involving bacterial capturing.

Rodents are known to be reservoirs of Toxoplasma gondii and keep the parasite circulation in the environment. We conducted biomonitoring to assess the role of sylvatic rodents in maintaining T. gondii and to analyse the prevalence and seroprevalence of the parasite in seven wild rodent species. Rodents were collected in our study sites (woodland and open grasslands) located in northeastern Poland and dissected. We collected brain, spleen, blood and serum samples. We applied both molecular (PCR assay, nested-PCR assay) and serological (ELISA and agglutination tests) methods to indicate the best approach for application in the biomonitoring of T. gondii in small mammals. We screened samples from 95 individuals sing PCR assays and found no T. gondii DNA. The agglutination test showed no signal. We found antibodies against T. gondii in 6 sera samples out of 74 analysed (seroprevalence = 8.11% [4.0-17.1]). Our results confirm that rodents participate in the life cycle of T. gondii as reservoirs of this parasite in the sylvatic environment. However, biomonitoring should be performed with the ELISA tests to search for T. gondii antigens, rather than a molecular approach only.

The lack of accurate and feasible diagnostic tests poses a significant challenge to visceral leish-maniasis (VL) healthcare services in endemic areas. To date, various VL diagnostic tests have been or are being developed, and their diagnostic performance needs to be assessed.. In the present study, the diagnostic performance of rk39RDT, Direct Agglutination Test (DAT), Microscopy, Loop Mediated Isothermal Amplification (LAMP), and miniature direct-on-blood polymerase chain reaction - nucleic acid lateral flow immunoassay (mini-dbPCR-NALFIA) was assessed using quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) as reference test in an endemic region of Ethiopia. In this study, 235 patients VL suspected patients and 104 non-endemic healthy controls (NEHC) were recruited. Among the VL-suspected patients, 144(61.28%) tested positive with qPCR. Sensi-tivities for rk39 RDT, DAT, Microscopy, LAMP assay, and mini-dbPCR-NALFIA were 88.11%, 96.50%, 76.58%, 94.33%, and 95.80%, respectively. Specificities were 83.33%, 97.96%, 100%, 97.38%, and 98.92% for rk39 RDT, DAT, Microscopy, LAMP assay, and mini-dbPCR-NALFIA, respectively. In conclusion, Rk39 RDT and microscopy exhibited lower sensitivity, while DAT demonstrated excellent performance. LAMP and mini-dbPCR-NALFIA showed excellent perfor-mance with feasibility to implement in remote endemic areas, although the latter requires further evaluation in such regions.

Galectins are a family of beta-galactoside-binding proteins that are characterised by their carbohydrate recognition domain (CRD) and include galectin-1 and galectin-3. These galectins have been implicated in numerous diseases due to their pleiotropic nature, including cancer and fibrosis, with therapeutic inhibitors being clinically developed to block the CRD. One of the early methods developed to characterise these galectins was hemagglutination of red blood cells. Although insightful this approach has been hampered by a lack of sensitivity and accurate quantification of the agglutination observed. In this study we aimed to validate a more precise and quantitative method to enable further investigation of differences between galectins in respect to agglutination induction in different blood groups as well as characterisation of small molecule inhibitors. Quantification of hemagglutination was shown to be optimal using U-bottom plates imaged and analysed with FIJI ImageJ rather than flat bottom plates read for absorbance on an optical density plate reader. Galectin-3-induced red blood cell agglutination efficacy increased significantly from blood group O to A to B. However, for both the galectin-1 monomer and concatemer a more comparable effect was observed between blood group B and O but with more potent effects than in blood group A. Inhibition assays for both galectin-3 and galectin-1 induced-hemagglutination were able to demonstrate clear concentration-responses and expected selectivity profiles for a set of small molecule glycomimetics, confirming historical profiles obtained in biochemical binding and functional cellular assays.