Recent Advances in the Synthesis and Biomedical Applications of Chain-End Functionalized Glycopolymers

Abstract

Glycopolymers as multivalent clusters of carbohydrate derivatives have been proven effective tools in the study of carbohydrate-based biological processes and have shown great potential in biomedical applications. It has been found that the shape and size of glycopolymers, as well as the density and relative positioning of their glycan appendages, are very important regarding their effectiveness in bio-interactions. Recently, a variety of chain-end functionalized polymers have been explored for the preparation of structurally well-defined glycopolymers that have potential protein modification and microarray fabrication applications. This review summarizes recent advances in the synthesis and biomedical applications of chain-end functionalized glycopolymers.

Keywords:

• Polymer
• Glycopolymer
• Polymerization
• Chain-end functionalization Protein
• Lectin
• Glycomicroarry

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work was partially supported by grants from the NIH (1R01HL102604-02, X.-L. Sun), the Ohio Research Scholar Program (X.-L. Sun), and NSF MRI (CHE-1126384, X.-L. Sun).