Synthetic glycans for structural studies: the importance of the modification pattern

Abstract

Carbohydrates are the most abundant organic compounds in nature. They serve as energy sources, regulate a plethora of biological processes, and are essential structural components in animals, plants and microorganisms. The structural diversity of carbohydrates results in materials with extremely different properties. Still, structure-property correlations are hardly established for carbohydrates due to the difficulty in obtaining pure, well-defined molecules and the lack of suitable analytical methods. A comprehensive understanding of carbohydrate function requires a detailed understanding and thorough elucidation of the carbohydrate's structure. The ultimate goal of this thesis is to establish correlations between the structure and the properties of carbohydrates and shine light on how small modifications affect the shape of carbohydrates. To achieve this goal, automated glycan assembly (AGA) is used as a platform to produce well-defined oligosaccharide probes. Molecular dynamic (MD) simulations are performed to address conformational aspects of oligosaccharides at the atomic level and to support the structural analysis.