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Carbohydrate interactions are widely spread through nature and play essential roles in diverse biological functions. Without being exhaustive, we can mention gamete–gamete interactions that initiate fertilization, recognition by (and attachment to) host cells by pathogenic organisms, or leukocyte rolling during the course of inflammation. Many other processes of biomedical relevance also involve glycan recognition. During the last three decades, key developments have focused on attempting to comprehend the chemical and molecular basis of saccharide interactions and how they manifest in medicine and biology. Many research fields interconnect herein. Indeed, the progress in glycosciences is probably due to advances in the areas of: synthetic carbohydrate chemistry methods as well as in the development of powerful tools that allow the rapid, robust, and diverse screening of protein–carbohydrate systems, such as carbohydrate or protein-based microarrays; in the instrumentation used to make biophysical measurements; in the advances in high-resolution structural analysis by X-ray crystallography and NMR; in the development of carbohydrate-based therapeutics, etc.

Many studies of protein–carbohydrate interactions arise from their involvement in diseases. Indeed, the outer surfaces of the cells of most pathogens have a distinct set of complex carbohydrate structures present as glycolipids or glycoproteins, together with their partners: the carbohydrate-binding proteins (lectins or toxins) that specifically recognize particular carbohydrate motifs. In fact, the initial contact between two cells or a cell and pathogen almost certainly comes down to protein–glycan recognition events. It is now clear that carbohydrates play a main role in the highly specific molecular recognitions of lectins, enzymes, and antibodies, mediating the key cellular activities mentioned above, as cell recognition, growth, and apoptosis.

Given the interdisciplinary nature of the glycoscience field, the study of carbohydrate interactions in drug research and discovery is widely open for exploration. This book gathers different efforts in this area. It covers basic aspects for exploring carbohydrate interactions, especially employing NMR spectroscopy, passing to the description of cutting edge research on the development of carbohydrate-based drugs and vaccines. Using chemical glycobiology methods and drug discovery approaches, the importance of multivalency for increasing recognition and the development of glyconanotechnology tools are also highlighted. Incursions in different key areas, such as Alzheimer's disease, cancer, bacterial infection, and immune response are also presented.

Jesús Jiménez-Barbero, F. Javier Cañada and Sonsoles Martín-Santamaría

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