Multivalent inhibitors for carbohydrate-processing enzymes: beyond the "lock-and-key" concept.

During the last decades, tremendous chemical efforts have been dedicated to design monovalent inhibitors of carbohydrate-processing enzymes, with comparatively few rewards in terms of marketed drugs. Recently, an alternative to the traditional "lock and key" approach has emerged. Multivalency, a widely used strategy for lectin inhibition, has been successfully applied to specific glycosidases and glycosyltransferases.