3^rd Glycobiology World Congress

Biography

Biography: Xue-Wei Liu

Abstract

Glycopeptides and glycoproteins play vital roles in a wide array of biological activities including cell-cell adhesion, cell differentiation, cell growth and tumour metastasis. In addition, a host of major illnesses such as autoimmune diseases, infectious diseases and cancer are caused by aberrant protein glycosylation. Consequently, the development of new glycopeptides-based vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics has gained significant interests, stimulating the study of glycopeptide synthesis. Here, a practical approach towards N-glycopeptide synthesis using an auxiliary-mediated dual native chemical ligation (NCL) is presented. The first NCL connects an N-linked glycosyl auxiliary to the thioester side chain of an N-terminal aspartate oligopeptide. This intermediate undergoes a second NCL with a C-terminal thioester peptide. Mild deprotection provides the desired N-glycopeptide. The flexibility and systematic control of our method clearly have significant advantages over preceding ones and present a major step forward in glycoscience. Taking into consideration of the previous approaches, our method offers an attractive and practical procedure to N-glycopeptide that does not require cysteine residue, allowing for straightforward glycosylation and ligation at aspartic acid terminal. The auxiliary-linked glycosyl donor can be obtained from readily available glycosyl azide. Our method can leverage modern techniques such as intein-mediated ligation or recombinant expression to gain access to peptides of virtually any length and order. In addition, quick access to polymeric peptidoglycans will also be presented.