Design and Synthesis of Glycomimetic Molecules

Carbohydrates are major sources of molecular information and mediate many vital processes. Oligosaccharide determinants of cellular glycoconjugates interact with protein receptors triggering a variety of cellular responses within a wide range of physiological and pathological processes and with high selectivity. Understanding these recognition events is important both to improve our knowledge of biological systems and for the potential therapeutic implications in various pharmacological areas. Functional mimics of carbohydrates could be used to tune or modify signals mediated by carbohydrate-protein interactions or to prevent the onset of diseases.1 Despite the relative large quantity of available structural data, the sugar code has not been cracked, yet, and the fundamentals of protein-carbohydrate recognition are still being actively studied.2 Attempts to rationally design mimics of oligosaccharides have been based mostly on ligand-based structural design. Our laboratory has been involved in this area to design and synthesize glycomimetic inhibitors of well-known target lectins (cholera toxin, DC-SIGN).3 Our approach and results will be discussed in this talk.