Département de chimie moléculaire

Bacterial and fungal pathogens involved in lung infection in cystic fibrosis patients utilize a particular family of glycan-binding proteins, characterized by the presentation of six fucose-binding sites on a ring-shaped scaffold. These lectins are attractive targets for anti-infectious compds. that could interfere in the recognition of host tissues by pathogens. The design of a cyclopeptide-based hexavalent structure allowed for the presentation of six fucose residues. The synthetic hexavalent compd. displays liable geometry resulting in high-avidity binding by lectins from Aspergillus fumigatus and Burkholderia ambifaria. Replacing the fucose residue with a conformationally constrained fucomimetic does not alter the affinity and provides fine specificity with no binding to other fucose-specific lectins. [on SciFinder(R)]