Glycocluster design could lead to targeted drug delivery
Monday, November 28, 2016 - 09:31
in Physics & Chemistry
A team led by researchers at the RIKEN Biofunctional Synthetic Chemistry Laboratory in Japan has developed a way to engineer glycan complexes—clusters of sugar chains attached to proteins or lipids—in a way that allows the molecules to be transported preferentially to specific organs of the body, depending on the sugar chains contained in the cluster. According to Katsunori Tanaka, the leader of the team, this work, which was published in Advanced Science, could lead to the development of glycocluster-based diagnostic tools with better selectivity and precision than current tracers based on peptides and antibodies.