Neoglycoconjugates: trade and art

This chapter deals with the tendencies in design of multivalent neoglycoconjugates for glycobiology research and high-throughput profiling technologies, including cellular phenotyping. Soluble polyacrylamide (PAA) conjugates are remarkable owing to a variety of possibilities for synthesis and application. PAA is soluble and stable, and the molecule is flexible, PAA-tethered ligands are capable of adjusting to a receptor during multiple-point interactions and PAA does not bind to the cell surface. Synthesis provides unlimited diversity of the probe types (biotin, fluorescein, allyl, digoxygenin, 3H, radiolabelled I), glyco-particles, glyco-surfaces, multiarrays, immunogens etc. Several examples illustrate the most advanced applications. (i) Dynamic systems: the selectin ligands immobilized on the surface as sugar-PAA conjugates made the study of the kinetics of rolling in the model system possible. Carbohydrate ligands that are covalently attached to the chip as sugar-PAA conjugates are of use with the surface plasmon resonance method. (ii) Pseudoglycoprotein: some questions arise regarding the biologically active glycoproteins, e.g.: is a carbohydrate or peptide fragment responsible for the activity? We have proposed the approach that promotes to answer this and other questions. The pool of oligosaccharides that were spitted off a glycoprotein is attached to PAA resulting in a pseudoglycoprotein. (iii) Virtual (dynamic) glycotope: receptor-ligand recognition, such as that of P-selectin with its receptor P-selectin glycoprotein ligand 1, frequently involves molecular interactions at two distinct sites. Using P-selectin as a model, we developed an approach to discover novel ligands. PAA was synthesized with multiple ligands; a marked synergistic inhibitory effect was observed.