CHEMICAL, ENZYMATIC AND STRUCTURAL STUDIES IN MOLECULAR GLYCOBIOLOGY

Carbohydrates are increasingly appreciated for their critical roles in biological functions. Driving these studies addressing the molecular basis of carbohydrate-mediated events is the availability of natural a nd unnatural carbohydrates. Recently, new methods of enzymatic synthes is have been developed that now afford rapid access to complex, struct urally diverse oligosaccharides on large scales, This methodology has been essential to gaining insight into the molecular details of import ant carbohydrate recognition phenomena that are associated with many s ignaling processes, This review summarizes recent chemical studies exa mining selectin/sialyl Lewis(x) binding, a key event in inflammation a nd metastasis, and describes the development of carbohydrate mimetics that may offer leads to new therapeutic agents. In addition, combinato rial synthesis has been used to prepare carbohydrate mimetics to neomy cin B, an aminoglycoside that binds RNA involved in HIV infection, and chemoenzymatic methodology has been applied to the design and synthes is of mechanism-based inhibitors of glycoprocessing enzymes.