The design and synthesis of boronic acid-based nanomaterials for targeting disease-associated glycans

These therapies may be expensive or result in damaging off-target effects. Moreover, the exact pathways that allow the pathophysiological effects are various, with many remaining unknown. Therefore, more insight is needed to create truly specific therapies.<br><br>This work involves the development of multivalent boronic acid-functionalised nanomaterials to study glycan-dependent pathophysiological interactions.

It was hypothesised that if materials can be synthesised to disrupt these pathophysiological glycan-binding events, it may be possible to activate the immune system to the presence of cancer cells and prevent bacterial infection respectively. Boronic acids are thus used as glycan-binding moieties that can form covalent boronate esters with diols on sugars.<br><br>Boronic acid-functionalised nanomaterials were developed to inhibit cancer cell–immune cell interactions and Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilm formation through reversible glycan binding.

Photocleavable boronic acid nanomaterials were also developed to enable controlled UV irradiation-triggered loss of glycan binding. Together, these systems establish a platform for studying and manipulating glycan-mediated biological interactions.