Multivalent ligand mimetics of LecA from P. aeruginosa: synthesis and NMR studies

Molecular recognition of glycans plays an important role in glycomic and glycobiology studies. For example, pathogens have a number of different types of lectin for targeting host sugars. In bacteria, lectins exist sometimes as domains of bacterial toxins and exploit adhesion to glycoconjugates as a means of entering host cells. Herein, we describe the synthesis of three glycodendrons with the aim to dissect the fine structural details involved in the multivalent carbohydrate–protein interactions. LecA, from the pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa, has been used to characterize galactose dendrons interaction using one of the most widespread NMR technique for the elucidation of receptor-ligand binding in solution, the saturation transfer difference (STD) NMR. Furthermore, the effective hydrodynamic radius of each dendrimer recognized by LecA was estimated from the diffusion coefficients determined by pulsed-field-gradient stimulated echo (PFG-STE) NMR experiments.