Synthetic heparin and heparan sulfate oligosaccharides and their protein interactions

Heparin and heparan sulfate bind a host of basic proteins that take advantage of the sugar's dense structural information. The significance of these interactions in various aspects of development, physiology, and disease stimulated keen interest in evaluating structure-activity relationships. The well-defined heparin and heparan sulfate oligosaccharides needed for these studies can be mainly accessed by chemical synthesis and, more recently by chemoenzymatic means. The various synthetic strategies available to chemical synthesis have recently enabled the acquisition of several regular and irregular sequences, including a number of dodecasaccharides, through improved coupling methods and judicial protecting group manipulations. Controlled chain elongation and critical application of modification enzymes allowed the generation of well-defined constructs via chemoenzymatic synthesis. Investigations of various protein interactions with the synthetic constructs delivered valuable information that could aid future drug development endeavors.