Lectimers: Glycan-anchored scaffold libraries for targeting carbohydrate-binding

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): We propose to develop a novel platform technology that will produce high-affinity and high-specificity ligands to target carbohydrate binding protein (CBPs), a diverse class of proteins which possess a wide range of biological functions, playing roles cancer tumorigeneisis, immune modulation and viral infection. Our method builds upon advances in sequencing technologies and leverages the natural, low affinity, interactions of monovalent sugars for CBPs combined with the ease of synthesis of nucleic acids. Our glycan-anchored libraries will thus possess many of the attributes of nucleic acids - in particular structural rigidity, ease of synthesis and the ease with which they can be amplified and characterized - but with the enhanced chemical functionality observed in peptides, proteins and small molecule ligands. Because these reagents are based on nucleic acids, the resulting affinity agents can be readily synthesized at relatively low cost and can be easily modified with a variety of fluorophores or chemical moieties for diagnostic, therapeutic and research purposes.