Screening of Tubers of Nelumbo Nucifera ( Water Lilly) for Lectinlike Substances Using Hemagglutination Assay

The tubers of water lily( Nelumbo nucifera )were collected from a tropical lake (Ossudu lake) and the methanol extract is screened for lectin-like substances using agglutination assay. The highest agglutination activity was found with human blood group B+ve with a maximum titre of 2 11 among human group O and B+ve, goat and chick erythrocytes. To ascertain the molecular mass of the protein present in the extract, one-dimensional SDS-PAGE was performed using standard methods on the Bio-Rad Mini-Protean II system. The electrophoretic gel revealed that the crude extract of tuber of Nelumbo nucifera was found to possess a protein with a molecular mass of 19 kDa.