Design and synthesis of glycomimetics

Mimics of oligosaccharides are under current investigation by a number of groups striving to produce tools for glycobiology and to design antagonists of medically relevant lectins. This chapter reviews trends that have developed over the past 5 years (2010-2014) in the field, focusing on three topics that we believe are providing the most interesting progress: (a) multivalent sugar-processing enzyme inhibitors; (b) synthesis of oligosaccharide and glycoconjugate mimics with unnatural glycosidic bonds/linkers and (c) use of second site interactions in monosaccharide-anchored lectin antagonists.