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Macrocyclic Glycoclusters: From Amphiphiles through Nanoparticles to Glycoviruses
Author(s) -
Aoyama Yasuhiro
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
chemistry – a european journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.687
H-Index - 242
eISSN - 1521-3765
pISSN - 0947-6539
DOI - 10.1002/chem.200305288
Subject(s) - amphiphile , chemistry , nanoparticle , covalent bond , transfection , biophysics , dna , nanotechnology , hydrogen bond , molecule , biochemistry , materials science , gene , polymer , organic chemistry , biology , copolymer
Macrocyclic glycocluster amphiphiles are intended to be a covalent‐bundle mimic of clustering glycolipid motifs on the cell membrane. They are irreversibly micellized to give glycocluster nanoparticles (GNPs); their masked hydrophobicity endows them with remarkable saccharide specificities in the interactions with biological saccharide receptors. The GNPs also exhibit unprecedented hydrogen‐bond capacities; they are agglutinated with Na 2 HPO 4 and assembled on plasmid DNA in a number‐, size‐, and shape‐controlled manner to give artificial glycoviral particles capable of transfection. Thus, the intrinsic function of viruses, that is, cell invasion followed by gene expression, is also intrinsic to size‐regulated (∼50 nm) glycoviruses. The growth of glycocluster amphiphiles through nanoparticles to glycoviruses reveals a hierarchical adhesion control of the saccharide clusters.