Fernández-Tejada Alberto, Cañada F Javier, Jiménez-Barbero Jesús
Chemical and Physical Biology, Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas (CIB-CSIC), Ramiro de Maeztu 9, 28040 Madrid (Spain).
CIC bioGUNE: Center for Cooperative Research in Biosciences, Bizkaia Technology Park, 48160 Derio (Spain).
ChemMedChem. 2015 Aug;10(8):1291-5. doi: 10.1002/cmdc.201500107. Epub 2015 May 14.
The biological relevance of glycans as mediators of key physiological processes, including disease-related mechanisms, makes them attractive targets for a wide range of medical applications. Despite their important biological roles, especially as molecular recognition elements, carbohydrates have not been fully exploited as therapeutics mainly due to the scarcity of structure-activity correlations and their non-drug-like properties. A more detailed understanding of the complex carbohydrate structures and their associated functions should contribute to the development of new glycan-based pharmaceuticals. Recent significant progress in oligosaccharide synthesis and chemical glycobiology has renewed the interest of the medicinal chemistry community in carbohydrates. This promises to increase our possibilities to harness them in drug discovery efforts for the development of new and more effective, synthetic glycan-based therapeutics and vaccines.
聚糖作为关键生理过程（包括疾病相关机制）的介质，其生物学相关性使其成为广泛医学应用的有吸引力的靶点。尽管它们具有重要的生物学作用，尤其是作为分子识别元件，但碳水化合物尚未被充分开发用作治疗药物，主要原因是结构 - 活性关系稀缺以及它们具有非药物样性质。对复杂碳水化合物结构及其相关功能的更详细了解应有助于新型基于聚糖的药物的开发。寡糖合成和化学生物糖学最近取得的重大进展重新激发了药物化学界对碳水化合物的兴趣。这有望增加我们在药物发现工作中利用它们开发新型、更有效、基于合成聚糖的治疗药物和疫苗的可能性。
