Search

Recognition of oligosaccharides is associated with very limited specificity due to their strong solvation in water and the high degree of subtle structural variations between them. Here, oligosaccharide recognition sites are created on material surfaces with unmatched, binary on-off binding behavior, sharply discriminating a target oligosaccharide over closely related carbohydrate structures. The basis for the superselective binding behavior relies on the highly efficient generation of a pure, high order complex of the oligosaccharide target with synthetic carbohydrate receptor sites, in which the spatial arrangement of the multiple receptors in the complex is preserved upon material surface incorporation. The synthetic binding scaffolds can easily be tailored to recognize different oligosaccharides and glycoconjugates, opening up a realm of possibilities for their use in a wide field of applications, ranging from life sciences to diagnostics., Competing Interests: A patent has been filled by the University of Birmingham related with the modular, synthetic strategy reported in this article under WO2015/118294. P.M.M is an author on the patent. The other authors declare that they have no competing interests., (© 2020 The Authors. Published by WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

The important role of vesicles in many aspects of cell function is well-recognized, but only recently have sophisticated imaging techniques begun to reveal their ubiquity in nature. While we further our understanding of the biological properties of vesicles and their physiological functions, increasingly elegant artificial vesicles are being developed for a wide range of technological applications and basic research. Herein, we examine the state of the art of biological and synthetic vesicles and place their biological features in the context of recent synthetic developments, thus providing a unique overview of these complex and rapidly developing fields. The challenges and opportunities associated with future biological and synthetic studies of vesicles are also presented., (© 2017 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

Understanding the dynamic behavior of switchable surfaces is of paramount importance for the development of controllable and tailor-made surface materials. Herein, electrically switchable mixed self-assembled monolayers based on oligopeptides have been investigated in order to elucidate their conformational mechanism and structural requirements for the regulation of biomolecular interactions between proteins and ligands appended to the end of surface tethered oligopeptides. The interaction of the neutravidin protein to a surface appended biotin ligand was chosen as a model system. All the considerable experimental data, taken together with detailed computational work, support a switching mechanism in which biomolecular interactions are controlled by conformational changes between fully extended ("ON" state) and collapsed ("OFF" state) oligopeptide conformer structures. In the fully extended conformation, the biotin appended to the oligopeptide is largely free from steric factors allowing it to efficiently bind to the neutravidin from solution. While under a collapsed conformation, the ligand presented at the surface is partially embedded in the second component of the mixed SAM, and thus sterically shielded and inaccessible for neutravidin binding. Steric hindrances aroused from the neighboring surface-confined oligopeptide chains exert a great influence over the conformational behaviour of the oligopeptides, and as a consequence, over the switching efficiency. Our results also highlight the role of oligopeptide length in controlling binding switching efficiency. This study lays the foundation for designing and constructing dynamic surface materials with novel biological functions and capabilities, enabling their utilization in a wide variety of biological and medical applications.

Bacterial adhesion can be controlled by applying electrical potentials to surfaces incorporating well-spaced negatively charged 11-mercaptoundecanoic acids. When combined with electrochemical surface plasmon resonance, these dynamic surfaces become powerful for monitoring and analysing the passage between reversible and non-reversible cell adhesion, opening new opportunities to advance our understanding of cell adhesion processes., (Copyright © 2013 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)