Chemical Synthesis of Glycans and Glycoconjugates

Peter H. Seeberger; Hermen S. Overkleeft

doi:10.1101/glycobiology.3e.053

Chemical Synthesis of Glycans and Glycoconjugates

Review

In: Essentials of Glycobiology [Internet]. 3rd edition. Cold Spring Harbor (NY): Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press; 2015. Chapter 53.

2017.

Authors

Peter H. Seeberger, Hermen S. Overkleeft

Book Editors

Book Affiliations

¹ Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Cellular & Molecular Medicine, Co-Director, Glycobiology Research and Training Center, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA
² Professor of Surgery, Director, National Center for Functional Glycomics, Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
³ Distinguished Professor of Cellular & Molecular Medicine, Co-Director, Glycobiology Research and Training Center, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA
⁴ Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Chair and Professor of Cell Biology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, New York, USA
⁵ Professor and Chairman of Biological Chemistry, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
⁶ Professor of Mycology, ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland
⁷ Regents Professor and Director, Complex Carbohydrate Research Center, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA
⁸ Professor, Laboratory of Immunoglycobiology, WPI Immunology Frontier Research Center, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan
⁹ Professor of Glycoproteomics and Glycomics, Macquarie University and Institute for Glycomics, Griffith University, Sydney, Australia
¹⁰ Professor and Eminent Scholar, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA
¹¹ Professor, Departments of Pharmacology and Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
¹² Director, Max-Planck-Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Potsdam, Germany

Excerpt

Pure glycans of defined structure are essential research tools in glycobiology. Unlike proteins and nucleic acids, which can be obtained in homogeneous forms by recombinant expression and polymerase chain reaction (PCR), respectively, glycans produced in biological systems are heterogeneous. Furthermore, the quantities that can be obtained from biological systems are often small. Chemical synthesis can be used to obtain homogeneous glycans in larger quantities than are available from most cellular production systems. Chemical synthesis can be further used to incorporate glycans into homogeneous glycoproteins. This chapter summarizes the current state of the art in chemical methods to produce glycans. Enzymes can be used together with chemical methods to further simplify the process of glycan synthesis (Chapter 54).

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