Heteroglycoclusters With Dual Nanomolar Affinities for the Lectins LecA and LecB From .

Multivalent structures displaying different instead of similar sugar units, namely heteroglycoclusters (hGCs), are stimulating the efforts of glycochemists for developing compounds with new biological properties. Here we report a four-step strategy to synthesize hexadecavalent hGCs displaying eight copies of αFuc and βGal. These compounds were tested for the binding to lectins LecA and LecB from . While parent fucosylated () and galactosylated () homoclusters present nanomolar affinity with LecB and LecA, respectively, we observed that hGCs combining these sugars ( and ) maintain their binding potency with both lectins despite the presence of an unspecific sugar. The added multivalency is therefore not a barrier for efficient recognition by bacterial receptors and it opens the route for adding different sugars that can be selected for their immunomodulatory properties.