<br/>Membrane-associated mucins protect epithelial cell surfaces against viral infection by serving as non-productive decoys that capture infectious agents and clear them from the cell surface and by erecting a physical barrier that restricts their access to target receptors on host cells (a). However, the mechanisms through which mucins function are still poorly defined due to a limited repertoire of tools available for tailoring their structure and composition in living cells with molecular precision. This presentation will introduce strategies to model mucins (c) in  synthetic glycopolymer (c), which can be integrated with glycan array platforms to disect how receptor presentations at the mucosal barrier may define the binding specificity of Influenza A viruses. When presented at the cell surface, these materials can also be used to evauate the dynamics of viral attachement in the crowded mucinous glycocalyx environment. Careful examination of viral behavior at the model glycocalyx surfaces using a range of biophysical and imaging techniques revealed physical mechanism through which viruses enhance their binding to host cells. Our findings indicate that glycan-targeting pathogens may exploit the biophysical and biomechanical properties of mucins to overcome the mucosal glycocalyx barrier.

Mucin-mimetic polymers for modeling the interactions and dynamics of viruses at the mucosal barrier

ACS Spring 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.