PyroSuL · Pyrophosphate Surrogates with Low polarity as part of glycosyltransferase ligands

Pyrophosphate Surrogates with Low polarity as part of glycosyltransferase ligands

Glycosilation is an enzymatic process where biomolecules are tagged with carbohydrates. This is a fundamental process for the maturation of every protein our bodies synthetise, or for the signalling tags our cells bear on their surface, which enable them to communicate with the environment. But there is much yet to be discovered and understood about these processes. What we know is the glycosylation machinery is affected in several diseases. For instance, tumoral cells protect themselves from being attacked by the immune system by modifying their signalling tags on their surface, or to enhance the metastasis development. So it is important to have tools to control this glycosylation machinery to promote or inhibit it according to therapeutical needs when the scope is treating a disease. For this aim, during the last decades the scientific community has done huge efforts to create new compounds able to control this glycosylation machinery, and one of the possibilities is the development of molecules able to interact with glycosyltransferases, which are the enzymes responsible of glycosylation. However, this is a very challenging task, due to the nature of the natural substrates of these enzymes and the difficulty to design and synthetise molecules with good pharmacological properties to be used as potential therapeutics. In this context, the objective of this MSCA-IF is designing small molecular fragments that can be used in the preparation of new glycosyltransferase inhibitors with better pharmacological properties that would make them suitable candidates for therapeutic drugs.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union