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Sugars stack up

Nature Chemical Biology volume 4, pages 586–587 (2008)Cite this article

Sugar binding by a variety of biomolecules is generally assumed to rely on hydrogen bonding and ionic interactions. A new study shows that arene-carbohydrate interactions are enthalpically driven through nontraditional C-H···π type hydrogen bonds.

Polysaccharides surround us, from the food we eat to the paper this journal is printed on. In vivo, specific polysaccharide recognition plays an integral role in mediating cell recognition1, apoptosis and disease2. Though their role in cellular communication is clear, polysaccharides have been overshadowed by the long reign of nucleotides as the principal biological information storage vehicle and proteins as their output. Additionally, whereas proteins, DNA and RNA are linear combinations of residues, profound structural diversity exists for polysaccharides. They can be branched, have multiple points of attachment, incorporate different monomers and adopt multiple conformations—a level of complexity that has also significantly plagued their study. So how do receptors “see” these sugars, and what are the rules of polysaccharide recognition? Morales et al.3 give a glimpse behind the curtain with a systematic study of carbohydrate recognition. Specifically, they investigate arene-carbohydrate interactions and implicate electrostatic forces as the fundamental basis for recognition.

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Figure 1: The dangling-end model system uses the stability of a DNA duplex to investigate the arene-carbohydrate interaction.

Katie Ris-Vicari

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  1. Chad Tatko is in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Calvin College, 3201 Burton Street, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546, USA. cdt2@calvin.edu

    Chad Tatko

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  1. Chad Tatko
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Tatko, C. Sugars stack up. Nat Chem Biol 4, 586–587 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchembio1008-586

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nchembio1008-586

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