Exploitation of β-glycosyl azides for the preparation of α-glycosynthases

Abstract

An interesting approach for the chemo-enzymatic synthesis of carbohydrates is the use of glycosynthases, a class of mutant glycosidases derived from β-glycoside hydrolases obtained by replacement of the active site nucleophile with a non-nucleophilic residue. However, the scarcity of α-glycosynthases has so far hampered access to the synthesis of a large class of oligosaccharides of biotechnological interest. We review here a new glycosynthetic methodology for the production of two retaining α-fucosynthases and an α-galactosynthase exploiting β-glycosyl azide derivatives. The general applicability of this approach, which opens new perspectives in the use of azide derivatives for the production of novel α-glycosynthases, is discussed.

Keywords::

• chemo-enzymatic synthesis
• glycoside hydrolases
• α-fucosidase
• α-galactosidase

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper. This work was supported by the project MoMa n. 1/014/06/0 of the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana.