The Use of Soybean Agglutinin (SBA) for Bone Marrow (BM) Purging and Hematopoietic Progenitor Cell Enrichment in Clinical Bone Marrow Transplantation

Soybean agglutinin (SBA) is a plant lectin, a glycoprotein of nonimmune origin that binds specifically to cell surface carbohydrates through noncovalent combinations and thus provokes agglutination of the bound cells. SBA has been used, therefore, to fractionate a variety of cell types. SBA binds approx 60-90% of bone marrow mononuclear cells, including mature myeloid, erythroid, and lymphoid cells, but has very low binding affinity and no toxic effect to the human hematopoietic progenitor cells. In addition, it binds very effectively to certain tumor cells, including neuroblastoma, breast cancer, and Burkitt’s lymphoma cells. Based on these characteristics, SBA has multiple potential applications for clinical bone marrow, transplantation (BMT)