Automated Solution-Phase Oligosaccharide Synthesisand Carbohydrate Microarrays: Developmentof Fluorous-Based Tools for Glycomics

摘要

Carbohydrates are increasingly recognized as key players in a range of disease processes, but their study and the development of glycotherapeutics has been limited in part by the lack of the same ready access to well-defined structures as has been achieved by automated synthesis of nucleic acids and peptides. After a review of the challenges of developing automated protocols for oligosaccharide synthesis, a new approach based on solution-phase rather than solid-phase iterative protocols is discussed. This new approach to automated synthesis based on light-fluorous tags also allows the direct formation of carbohydrate microarrays for biological screening of carbohydrate-protein interactions.