Binding of a series of sialylated and non-sialylated cell surface carbohydrates to bovine heart galectin-1, recombinant murine galectin-3, and recombinant human galectin-7 was investigated by isothermal titrn. microcalorimetry (ITC) and hemagglutination inhibition measurements. Galectin-7 shows nearly equal affinities for lactose and Galb(1-4)GlcNAc (LacNAc-II). Galectin-7, however, displays six- and 11-fold weaker affinity for LacNAc-II compared with galectins-1 and -3, resp. The affinity of galectin-7 for LacNAc-II contg. oligosaccharides is also weaker than the other two galectins. ITC measurements show that all three galectins bind to di- and trimeric oligomers of LacNAc-II, which are epitopes found in poly-N-acetyllactosamine chains of glycoprotein receptors, with affinity consts. similar to that of LacNAc-II. The binding valencies of the di- and trimeric LacNAc-II oligomers were obsd. to be one from ITC measurements, indicating formation of 1:1 complexes with all three galectins. Thus, galectins-1, -3, and -7 all possess binding sites that primarily accommodate one LacNAc-II moiety per monomer of protein. Sialylated oligosaccharides show different specificities for the three galectins. While 2,3-sialyl LacNAc-II binds to all three galectins, 2,6-sialyl LacNAc-II fails to bind to any of the galectins; 2,6-sialylated diLacNAc binds well to galectin-3 and galectin-7, but only weakly to galectin-1. Similar results are obtained with 2,6-sialyl lacto-N-neo-tetraose, which has a reducing end lactose moiety. Thus, unlike galectin-1, which predominantly recognizes non-reducing terminal LacNAc-II residues in oligosaccharides, galectins-3 and -7 recognize both non-reducing terminal LacNAc-II residues as well as internal LacNAc-II and lactose residues in sialylated and non-sialylated oligosaccharides. [on SciFinder (R)]