Cell surface carbohydrates (glycans) change with the onset of cancer and inflammation, representing therefore highly promising targets for early diagnosis and selective anticancer therapy. These glycans called tumor associated carbohydrate antigens play a major role in the growth and metastases of tumor cells and are the target of several monoclonal antibodies (mAb) in clinical development. Lectins are valuable tools for studying glycans as well as changes that occur during various physiological and pathological processes, ranging from cell differentiation to cancer. The potential of lectins as therapeutic and diagnostic tools in pharmacology is also enormous and is under investigation. Lectin-glycan interactions are composed of cooperative H-bonding, hydrophobic interactions, CH-pi interactions, pi-pi interactions and electrostatic interactions. This project reports the synthesis of lectin mimics which incorporates the key interactions in lectin-glycan binding in nature. Dissociation constants of receptors with monosaccharides are higher than that observed in nature.

Synthesis, characterization and binding studies of a bipyridine based lectin mimic under physiological conditions

250th National Meeting (2015)

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