CuI -Mediated Degradation of Polysaccharides Leads to Fragments with Narrow Polydispersities

Targeting Galectins With Glycomimetics

Among glycan-binding proteins, galectins, β-galactoside-binding lectins, exhibit relevant biological roles and are implicated in many diseases, such as cancer and inflammation. Their involvement in crucial pathologies makes them interesting targets for drug discovery. In this review, we gather the last approaches toward the specific design of glycomimetics as potential drugs against galectins. Different approaches, either using specific glycomimetic molecules decorated with key functional groups or employing multivalent presentations of lactose and N-acetyl lactosamine analogs, have provided promising results for binding and modulating different galectins. The review highlights the results obtained with these approximations, from the employment of S-glycosyl compounds to peptidomimetics and multivalent glycopolymers, mostly employed to recognize and/or detect hGal-1 and hGal-3.

Novel Dextran-Supported Biological Probes Decorated with Disaccharide Entities for Investigating the Carbohydrate-Protein Interactions of Gal-3

The quest for novel natural-like biomolecular probes that can be used to gain information on biological recognition events is of topical interest to several scientific areas. In particular, the recognition of carbohydrates by proteins modulates a number of important biological processes. These molecular recognition events are, however, difficult to study by the use of naturally occurring oligosaccharides and polysaccharides owing to their intrinsic structural heterogeneity and to the many technical difficulties encountered during the isolation of sufficient quantities of pure material for detailed structural and biological studies. Therefore, the construction of homogenous biomolecular probes that can mimic both the biophysical properties of polysaccharide backbones and the properties of bioactive oligosaccharide fragments are highly sought after. Herein, synthetic methodology for the construction of well-defined bioconjugates consisting of biologically relevant disaccharide fragments grafted onto a dextran backbone is presented, and a preliminary NMR spectroscopy study of their interactions with galectin-3 as a model lectin is conducted.