Abstract
This article focuses on the most recent research efforts by the Wang group in the field of α-Gal oligosaccharides, α-Gal oligosaccharides are carbohydrate structures bearing a Galα1-3Galβ terminus. This class of compounds are believed to act as xenoactive antigens that instigate the hyperacute rejection in xenotransplantation. Enzymatic methods using recombinant α1-3 galactosyltransferase were employed to synthesize several α-Gal oligosaccharides. In addition, a chemical synthetic scheme was devised in order to produce readily acessible amounts of α-Gal. Conformational analysis was done using both NMR techniques and molecular modeling protocols. These studies provide important information in the structure-function relationship of α-Gal and anti-α-Gal antibodies. The second part of this article deals with the use of α-Gal in immunotherapy. Based on the abundance of anti-α-Gal antibodies IgM and IgG in human blood serum, α-Gal conjugates may act as effective immunotherapeutic drugs. Recent studies have discovered characteristic peptide sequences containing Arg-Gly-Asp (RGD) motif that binds to integrins on the surface of cancer cells. A α-Gal conjugate was developed by chemical coupling a α-Gal trisaccharide to a RGD peptide. Preliminary studies using the conjugate on prostate DU-145 cancer cells showed a reduction in the survival rate of the cells.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 155-164 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | Current Medicinal Chemistry |
Volume | 6 |
Issue number | 2 |
State | Published - 1999 |
Externally published | Yes |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Organic Chemistry
- Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology(all)
- Biochemistry
- Pharmacology