Protecting Group-Controlled Enzymatic Glycosylation of Oligo-N-Acetyllactosamine Derivatives

Abstract

We describe a chemoenzymatic strategy that can give a library of differentially fucosylated and sialylated oligosaccharides starting from a single chemically synthesized tri-N-acetyllactosamine derivative. The common precursor could easily be converted into 6 different hexasaccharides in which the glucosamine moieties are either acetylated (GlcNAc) or modified as a free amine (GlcNH2) or Boc (GlcNHBoc). Fucosylation of the resulting compounds by a recombinant fucosyl transferase resulted in only modification of the natural GlcNAc moieties providing access to 6 selectively mono- and bis-fucosylated oligosaccharides. Conversion of the GlcNH2 or GlcNHBoc moieties into the natural GlcNAc followed by sialylation by sialyl transferases gave 12 differently fucosylated and sialylated compounds. The oligosaccharides were printed as a microarray which was probed by several glycan binding proteins demonstrating that complex patterns of fucosylation can modulate glycan recognition.