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Updated: Mar 28, 2026

Engineering Antiviral Agents via Surface Plasmon Resonance
Published on: June 14, 2022
A Modular Approach to Phosphoglycosyltransferase Inhibitors Inspired by Nucleoside Antibiotics
Marthe T C Walvoort1, Vinita Lukose1, Barbara Imperiali2
1Departments of Chemistry and Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA.
Abstract:
Phosphoglycosyltransferases (PGTs) represent "gatekeeper" enzymes in complex glycan assembly pathways by catalyzing transfer of a phosphosugar from an activated nucleotide diphosphosugar to a membrane-resident polyprenol phosphate. The unique structures of selected nucleoside antibiotics, such as tunicamycin and mureidomycin A, which are known to inhibit comparable biochemical transformations, are exploited as the foundation for the development of modular synthetic inhibitors of PGTs. Herein we present the design, synthesis, and biochemical evaluation of two readily manipulatable modular scaffolds as inhibitors of monotopic bacterial PGTs. Selected compounds show IC50 values down to the 40 μm range, thereby serving as lead compounds for future development of selective and effective inhibitors of diverse PGTs of biological and medicinal interest.
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