Jianbo Zhang, Xi Chen, Jun Shao
2003
Citations
0
Influential Citations
10
Citations
Journal
Methods in enzymology
Abstract
Publisher Summary Galactosides as carbohydrate receptors play critical roles in biological recognition events. α -galactosyl ( α -gal) epitopes and globotriose are two representative galactosyloligosaccharides with therapeutic significance. Neutralization of anti-gal with free α -gal and its derivatives is a promising treatment to overcome hyper-acute rejection (HAR). It is clear that further studies on preventing HAR and protecting humans from pathogen attack require easy access to substantial amounts of α -gal and globotriose, as well as their analogs. The superbeads and superbug are versatile tools that have shown utility in synthesis of galactoside analogs. At present, other sugar–nucleotide regeneration systems are being constructed to synthesize diverse glycoconjugates and unnatural derivatives. The success of superbeads and the superbug technology offers the promise of easily synthesizing diversified oligosaccharides and glycoconjugates with uncommon or even unnatural sugar residues to meet increasing biochemical demands. On the other hand, the substrate recognition between substrates and enzymes has a dual function. With the superbeads and superbug approaches, it holds promise for the screening of possible inhibitors in the biosynthetic pathway, if the substrates cannot be adopted as suitable donor or acceptors.