Developing High-Affinity Boron-Based Receptors for Cell-Surface Carbohydrates

✍ Scribed by Todd A. Houston

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 219 KB
• Volume: 11
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1439-4227
• DOI: 10.1002/cbic.201000079

✦ Synopsis

Humans have sought inspiration from nature since the beginning of recorded history. For today's scientists, biological systems are replete with molecular recognition events of awe-inspiring specificity. Contrary to amino and nucleic acids, carbohydrates tend to behave as elusive ligands toward their natural receptors, such as the lectin family. Nature has overcome the generally modest affinity of proteins for monosaccharides through multivalent binding mechanisms. Not only does this provide an increase in the association constant of binding, but it also amplifies selectivity among structurally similar carbohydrates. The design of synthetic receptors for specific sugar structures presents a daunting challenge that we have yet to master.

Why boron?

From a chemical standpoint, boron acids (boric, boronic, and borinic) display an interesting affinity for polyols (Scheme 1). Children who have mixed borax with solutions of polyvinyl alcohol to create "slime" are witnessing examples of this in the