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Synthetic sugars enhance the functional glycomics toolkit

Glycosaminoglycan-protein interactions are an important frontier for discovering new mechanisms of cellular regulation by complex sugars. The integration of the 'chemical glycomics' strategies of synthetic chemistry, arrays and biological assays shows that the precise pattern of sugar sulfation dictates the specificity of a sugar's function.

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Figure 1: Synthetic tetrasaccharides having different impacts on neurite outgrowth provide a chemical dimension to functional glycomics.

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Turnbull, J., Linhardt, R. Synthetic sugars enhance the functional glycomics toolkit. Nat Chem Biol 2, 449–450 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchembio0906-449

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