Sugar-Polyacrylamide Conjugates as Probes for Cell Lectins

Abstract

Glycoconjugates on the cell surface or in soluble form take part in many vitally important processes of recognition. Synthetic analogs of glycoconjugates—neoglycoproteins, neoglycolipids, and pseudopolysaccharides are successfully used for studying and modeling these processes. An advantage of synthetic glycoconjugates is the possibility of creating molecules with the programmed properties, e.g., solubility, molecular weight, ligand density, etc. Polyacrylamide-based glycoconjugates have a number of essential differences from traditionally used BSA-based neoglycoproteins. These differences are the following: chemical and immunological inertness (low nonspecific interaction with proteins) and also the flexibility of the polymer which is a random coil, allowing the carbohydrate ligands to re-arrange themselves and to interact with the carbohydrate-binding protein in an optimal way.