Stereoisomerism effect on sugar-lectin binding of self-assembled glyco-nanoparticles of linear and brush copolymers.

Binding behavior of carbohydrate and protein is known to be crucial to the biological roles of sugars. Recently, we notice that, even to the same lectin, some reported binding results based on glycopolymers and/or self-assembled glyco-nanoparticles are different from those obtained on small molecular level. Some of such discrepancy could be associated with the different detection methods used. In this paper, by using self-assembled nanoparticles based on brush and linear glycopolymers, this stereoisomerism effect was evaluated systematically, both in solution and on solution-solid interface by different methods. All measurements led to the same conclusion that the stereoisomer of sugars determined the binding ability of glyco-nanoparticles with different lectins. The investigation also provided evidence on the different binding modes of nanoparticles of linear polymers and brush polymers.