“Coloring” carbohydrates<=/span>

Two approaches in carbohydr= ate analysis with the central theme of “molecular imaging” of carbohydrates and related carbohydrate binding proteins will be presented. = At first, the regio- and ster= eospecific dynamic covalent interactions of 3-pyridine boronic acid (1) with mono-, di- and tri-sacchari= des will be presented. Comprehensive studies of the molecular recognition mecha= nism indicated 1 to be an effective molecular imaging agent for spectroscopic and mass-spectrometric analysis of carbohydrates.

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Second, a new type of self-assembled monolayer was developed based on a stable tripodal surface ligand (2). The surface ligand displayed similar surface binding characteristics as alkylthiols, yet showed much better chemical and biological stabilities than thiols. For example, it has a shelf lifetime for at l= east 2 years at below mM concentration under ambient conditions. The uses of this surface linker to prepare bioconjugates for glycobiochips and sugar modified fluorescen= t gold nanoparticle probes will be presented.

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