Synthesis of Brush-Like Glycopolymers with Monodisperse, Sequence-Defined Side Chains and Their Interactions with Plant and Animal Lectins

Abstract

The synthesis of brush glycopolymers mimicking the architecture of proteoglycans is achieved by grafting sequence-defined glycooligomers derived from solid-phase polymer synthesis onto a poly(active ester) scaffold. This approach gives access to a first library of brush glycopolymers with controlled variations in the degree of branching and number of carbohydrate ligands per branch. When studying lectin binding of linear and brush glycopolymers to lectins Concanavalin A (ConA), dendritic cell-specific intercellular adhesion molecule-3-grabbing non-integrin (DC-SIGN), and mannose-binding lectin (MBL), different preferences are observed with MBL showing higher binding to linear glycopolymer and ConA and DC-SIGN favoring brush glycopolymers. This finding suggests that the architecture of polymeric glycan mimetics affects binding to lectins not only in terms of creating higher avidity but potentially also selectivity ligands.