Solid-phase synthesis of multivalent glycoconjugates on a DNA synthesizer.

Carbohydrate-oligonucleotide conjugates and glycodendrimers were synthesized utilizing a DNA synthesizer. The synthesis of multivalent glycoconjugates on solid-phase allows custom tailoring of their structure to the requirements of biological assays within hours, as opposed to traditional approaches that require weeks or months of work in the laboratory. Therefore it will become much easier to investigate carbohydrate-protein interactions and optimize for objectives such as the receptor-mediated targeting of antisense oligonucleotides.