Multivalency plays a major role in biological processes and particularly in the relationship between pathogenic microorganisms and their host that involves protein-glycan recognition. These interactions occur during the first steps of infection, for specific recognition between host and bacteria, but also at different stages of the immune response. The search for high-affinity ligands for studying such interactions involves the combination of carbohydrate head groups with different scaffolds and linkers generating multivalent glycocompounds with controlled spatial and topology parameters. By interfering with pathogen adhesion, such glycocompounds including glycopolymers, glycoclusters, glycodendrimers and glyconanoparticles have the potential to improve or replace antibiotic treatments that are now subverted by resistance. Multivalent glycoconjugates have also been used for stimulating the innate and adaptive immune systems, for example with carbohydrate-based vaccines. Bacteria present on their surfaces natural multivalent glycoconjugates such as lipopolysaccharides and S-layers that can also be exploited or targeted in anti-infectious strategies.

Multivalent carbohydrates are currently produced in many forms ranging from dendrimers, polymers, micelles, vesicles, nanoparticles to functionalized nanotubes, in order to enhance the potency of the carbohydrates as ligands or inhibitors. Variations in valency range from systems containing two carbohydrate units to those containing more than 2000. In this perspective a number of popular target proteins for multivalent binding/inhibition have been selected. The optimal systems displaying the largest multivalency effects are discussed with respect to their mechanism of multivalent binding.

Discovery of glycan-competitive galectin-3-binding compounds that attenuate lung fibrosis in a murine model and that block intracellular galectin-3 accumulation at damaged vesicles, hence revealing galectin-3-glycan interactions involved in fibrosis progression and in intracellular galectin-3 activities, is reported. 3,3'-Bis-(4-aryltriazol-1-yl)thiodigalactosides were synthesized and evaluated as antagonists of galectin-1, -2, -3, and -4 N-terminal, -4 C-terminal, -7 and -8 N-terminal, -9 N-terminal, and -9 C-terminal domains. Compounds displaying low-nanomolar affinities for galectins-1 and -3 were identified in a competitive fluorescence anisotropy assay. X-ray structural analysis of selected compounds in complex with galectin-3, together with galectin-3 mutant binding experiments, revealed that both the aryltriazolyl moieties and fluoro substituents on the compounds are involved in key interactions responsible for exceptional affinities towards galectin-3. The most potent galectin-3 antagonist was demonstrated to act in an assay monitoring galectin-3 accumulation upon amitriptyline-induced vesicle damage, visualizing a biochemically/medically relevant intracellular lectin-carbohydrate binding event and that it can be blocked by a small molecule. The same antagonist administered intratracheally attenuated bleomycin-induced pulmonary fibrosis in a mouse model with a dose/response profile comparing favorably with that of oral administration of the marketed antifibrotic compound pirfenidone.

Carbohydrate-protein interactions are involved in a multitude of biological recognition processes. Since individual protein-carbohydrate interactions are usually weak, multivalency is often required to achieve biologically relevant binding affinities and selectivities. Among the possible mechanisms responsible for binding enhancement by multivalency, the simultaneous attachment of a multivalent ligand to several binding sites of a multivalent receptor (i.e. chelation) has been proven to have a strong impact. This article summarizes recent examples of chelating lectin ligands of different size. Covered lectins include the Shiga-like toxin, where the shortest distance between binding sites is ca. 9 Å, wheat germ agglutinin (WGA) (shortest distance between binding sites 13-14 Å), LecA from Pseudomonas aeruginosa (shortest distance 26 Å), cholera toxin and heat-labile enterotoxin (shortest distance 31 Å), anti-HIV antibody 2G12 (shortest distance 31 Å), concanavalin A (ConA) (shortest distance 72 Å), RCA120 (shortest distance 100 Å), and Erythrina cristagalli (ECL) (shortest distance 100 Å). While chelating binding of the discussed ligands is likely, experimental proof, for example by X-ray crystallography, is limited to only a few cases.

Chemical cross-linking mass spectrometry is rapidly emerging as a prominent technique to study protein structures. Structural information is obtained by covalently connecting peptides in close proximity by small reagents and identifying the resulting peptide pairs by mass spectrometry. However, substoichiometric reaction efficiencies render routine detection of cross-linked peptides problematic. Here, we present a new trifunctional cross-linking reagent, termed PhoX, which is decorated with a stable phosphonic acid handle. This makes the cross-linked peptides amenable to the well-established immobilized metal affinity chromatography (IMAC) enrichment. The handle allows for 300× enrichment efficiency and 97% specificity. We exemplify the approach on various model proteins and protein complexes, e.g., resulting in a structural model of the LRP1/RAP complex. Almost completely removing linear peptides allows PhoX, although noncleavable, to be applied to complex lysates. Focusing the database search to the 1400 most abundant proteins, we were able to identify 1156 cross-links in a single 3 h measurement.

Carbohydrates participate in almost every aspect of biology from protein sorting to modulating cell differentiation and cell-cell interactions. To date, the majority of data gathered on glycan expression has been obtained via analysis with either anti-glycan antibodies or lectins. A detailed understanding of the specificities of these reagents is critical to the analysis of carbohydrates in biological systems. Glycan microarrays are increasingly used to determine the binding specificity of glycan-binding proteins (GBPs). In this study, six different glycan microarray platforms with different modes of glycan presentation were compared using five well-known lectins; concanavalin A, Helix pomatia agglutinin, Maackia amurensis lectin I, Sambucus nigra agglutinin and wheat germ agglutinin. A new method (universal threshold) was developed to facilitate systematic comparisons across distinct array platforms. The strongest binders of each lectin were identified using the universal threshold across all platforms while identification of weaker binders was influenced by platform-specific factors including presentation of determinants, array composition and self-reported thresholding methods. This work compiles a rich dataset for comparative analysis of glycan array platforms and has important implications for the implementation of microarrays in the characterization of GBPs.

The extracellular functions of galectin-7 (p53-induced gene 1) are largely unknown. On the surface of neuroblastoma cells (SK-N-MC), the increased GM 1 density, a result of upregulated ganglioside sialidase activity, is a key factor for the switch from proliferation to differentiation. We show by solid-phase and cell assays that the sugar chain of this ganglioside is a ligand for galectin-7. In serum-supplemented proliferation assays, galectin-7 reduced neuroblastoma cell growth without the appearance of features characteristic for classical apoptosis. The presence of galectin-3 blocked this effect, which mechanistically resembles that of galectin-1. By virtue of carbohydrate binding, galectin-7 thus exerts neuroblastoma growth control similar to galectin-1 despite their structural differences. In addition to p53-linked proapoptotic activity intracellularly, galectin-7, acting as a lectin on the cell surface, appears to be capable of reducing cancer cell proliferation in susceptible systems.

Multivalent dendrimeric peptides were synthesized via a microwave-assisted Huisgen 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition between azido peptides and dendrimeric alkynes in yields ranging from 46 to 96%.