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  • Perspective
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Towards glycan foldamers and programmable assemblies

Nature Reviews Materials volume 9, pages 190–201 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Natural biopolymers have inspired the development of synthetic analogues that can adopt defined conformations and assemble into 3D architectures. These compounds are mainly based on peptides and nucleic acids, which are well understood at the molecular level and can be rationally synthesized to obtain functional artificial systems. By contrast, synthetic glycans have remained relatively unexplored in materials science and supramolecular chemistry, a paradox considering that carbohydrates are the most abundant structural materials on Earth. Recent advances in automated synthesis and analytical techniques have improved our understanding of glycan structures, transforming our perception of glycans from shapeless molecules to polymers adopting several distinct conformations. This newly available knowledge suggests that glycans capable of folding and assembling into defined architectures can be created. In this Perspective, we explore the emerging field of programmable carbohydrate architectures, highlighting the breakthroughs in synthesis and analysis that have made the design of artificial glycan foldamers and assemblies possible. Finally, we discuss the future prospects of this field, analysing which challenges must be overcome to establish design rules for building carbohydrate materials on demand.

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Fig. 1: Appealing features of glycans to build programmable architectures.
Fig. 2: Synthetic and analytical improvements in glycosciences.
Fig. 3: Designing principles to access artificial glycan foldamers and assemblies.
Fig. 4: Future perspectives of glycan foldamers and assemblies.

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Data availability

Glycan 3D features are either obtained from Polysac3-DB and BioOligo3-DB, both are sub-databases of Glyco3D (https://glyco3d.cermav.cnrs.fr), or directly from the cited publication. Peptide 3D features are obtained from the Protein Data Bank (https://www.rcsb.org). All 3D structures have been established experimentally from X-ray, neutron electron diffraction, high-resolution NMR and molecular modelling. All PDB files can also be downloaded from https://doi.org/10.17617/3.79M9Z6.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Max Planck Society, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF, grant number 13XP5114, to M. D.), the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation; SFB 1449, project number 431232613, sub-project C2) and the European Research Council (ERC) under the Horizon Europe research and innovation programme (project number 101075357 GLYCOFOLD) for the generous financial support.

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  1. Department of Biomolecular Systems, Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Potsdam, Germany

    Surusch Djalali, Nishu Yadav & Martina Delbianco

  2. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Surusch Djalali & Nishu Yadav

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  1. Surusch Djalali
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  2. Nishu Yadav
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M.D. conceived the article. S.D. designed the figures. All authors contributed to the discussion and writing of the article.

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Correspondence to Martina Delbianco.

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Djalali, S., Yadav, N. & Delbianco, M. Towards glycan foldamers and programmable assemblies. Nat Rev Mater 9, 190–201 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41578-023-00638-x

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