The liverwort Marchantia polymorpha expresses orthologs of the fungal Agaricus bisporus agglutinin family.

A lectin different from the previously described mannose-binding agglutinins has been isolated from the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha. Biochemical characterization of the purified lectin combined with the data from earlier transcriptome analyses demonstrated that the novel M. polymorpha agglutinin is not related to any of the known plant lectin families, but closely resembles the Agaricus bisporus-type lectins, which hitherto have been found exclusively in fungi. Immunolocalization studies confirmed that lectin is exclusively associated with plant cells, ruling out the possibility of a fungal origin. Extensive screening of publicly accessible databases confirmed that, apart from fungi, the occurrence of A. bisporus-type lectins is confined to M. polymorpha and the moss Tortula ruralis. Expression of a typical fungal protein in a liverwort and a moss raises the question of the origin of the corresponding genes. Regardless of the evolutionary origin, the presence of a functional A. bisporus lectin ortholog in M. polymorpha provides evidence for the expression of an additional carbohydrate-binding domain in Viridiplantae.