Carbohydrates in Peptide and Protein Design - Peptide and Protein Design for Biopharmaceutical Applications - page 175

5

Carbohydrates in Peptide
and Protein Design 1

Knud J. Jensen and Jesper Brask

5.1 INTRODUCTION

Monosaccharides and amino acids are fundamental building blocks in
the assembly of nature's polymers. They have different structural aspects
and, to a significant extent, different functional groups. Oligomerization
gives rise to oligosaccharides and peptides, respectively. Carbohydrates
and peptides can be found conjoined in nature, e.g. in glycopeptides. It is
testimony to the genius of Emil Fischer that he is the founding father of
the chemistry of both peptides and carbohydrates, two of nature's funda-
mental building blocks in heteroatom-linked biopolymers. Since then,
carbohydrate chemistry has progressed through the pioneering work of
Claude S. Hudson, Raymond Lemieux, Hans Paulsen and many others,
while peptide chemistry has been developed through the work of Vincent
du Vigneaud, R. Bruce Merrifield and many more. The topic of
'carbohydrates in peptide and protein design' brings these two fields of
bioorganic chemistry together again.
The aim of this review is the radical redesign of peptide structures,
using

carbohydrates - particularly monosaccharides and cyclic

1 This chapter is a revised version of K. J. Jensen and J. Brask, Carbohydrates in peptide and
protein design, Biopolymers (Pept. Sci.) , 80, 747-761 (2005).