The Synthesis of Artificial Receptor Libraries

The SPOCC centre has a program on the synthesis of artificial receptors mimicking the structure of natural receptors toward mono- and oligosaccharides. The receptors are composed of an aromatic base upon which loops of peptides form a cage like structure that can accommodate a glycan unit. The design of the library is based on molecular modelling and design by iterative binding assays and synthesis. Good selectivity has been achieved towards b -glycoside in comparison to a -glycoside and galactosides. Combinatorial libraries of these receptors structure with a variety of loop sizes, aromatic units, hydrogen bond donors and acceptors provides the tools for screening for selective recognition of a large varieties of small molecules.