Complex mimetics, simply done

A method to synthesise diverse libraries of carbohydrate clusters quickly and simply has been developed.

Carbohydrate clusters have the potential to lead to new antibiotics and these libraries could be screened for drug leads or developed further to give specific drug targets.

The method combines four compounds in a one-pot process known as the Ugi multicomponent reaction. By using a variety of carbohydrate-containing starting materials, a diverse range of products can be made. The sugar units also have amine groups attached that can interact with bacterial RNA.

The work, by Bernhard Westermann and Simon D?rner from the Leibniz Institute for Plant Biochemistry, Halle, Germany, extends a known reaction to a new application. Any antibiotics developed using carbohydrate clusters would likely develop fewer resistance problems and be less toxic than simple carbohydrates. Using several binding sites on one molecule also gives improved performance, say the researchers.

Vikki Allen