大象传媒

Jan Holgersson
Department of Laboratory Medicine, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden

Cell surface carbohydrates are essential for a multitude of biomedically important interactions taking place at the cell surface. Carbohydrate-binding proteins are therefore significant targets for the development of carbohydrate-based inhibitors. Because of their multivalent character, monovalent low molecular-weight sugar homologues or analogues are usually poor inhibitors of these interactions. Recent advances in organic and chemoenzymatic synthesis of carbohydrates will undoubtedly increase the pace by which new multivalent carbohydrate-based drugs are developed. Knowledge gained on the glycosyltransferases involved in glycan biosynthesis can be used to engineer host cells for recombinant production of proteins with tailored glycan substitutions. In particular, recombinant mucin-type proteins can serve as natural scaffolds for the multivalent presentation of therapeutic carbohydrate determinants, and I will discuss the use of such mucin-type proteins as antibody adsorbers and inhibitors of microbial adhesion.

Selected reference:

Gustafsson, A. & Holgersson, J. A new generation of carbohydrate-based therapeutics: recombinant mucin-type fusion proteins as versatile inhibitors of protein-carbohydrate interactions. Expert Opin. Drug Discov. (2006) 1: 161-178

Host: Marion Kusche-Gullberg, Department of Biomedicine

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