By using bigger building blocks, scientists in the UK have shown they can make much longer oligosaccharide sequences than previously possible.
The traditional synthetic route to long chain oligosaccharides is drawn out and complicated; they require numerous steps to produce the precursor tetrasaccharides, then further steps to connect these precursors into long chains. Normally they’re made by an iterative two block process, generating chains up to 12 units long. Now, a four block approach, developed by John Gardiner and colleagues at the University of Manchester, significantly reduces the number of steps enabling longer sugar lengths from 16 up to 40 units. Read the full article in Chemistry World»
Read the original journal article in Chemical Science – it’s open access:
Making the longest sugars: a chemical synthesis of heparin-related [4]n oligosaccharides from 16-mer to 40-mer
Steen U. Hansen, Gavin J. Miller, Matthew J. Cliff, Gordon C. Jayson and John M. Gardiner
Chem. Sci., 2015, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C5SC02091C, Edge Article
