Automated carbohydrate

Fig. 2. Schematic description of the automated carbohydrate synthesis machine. (See color insert.)...

Scheme 3. Automated carbohydrate synthesis using glycosyl phosphates.

Automated carbohydrate synthesis allows for the production of complex carbohydrates orders of magnitude faster than other approaches. This advance has the potential to parallel the breakthroughs achieved by researchers in the peptide and DNA fields that opened up the pro-teomic and genomic eras in biotechnology. By increasing the scope of the carbohydrate building block library and streamlining the reaction conditions further we anticipate that automated solid-phase carbohydrate synthesis will become the method of choice for carbohydrate production. 

P. H. Seeberger, Automated carbohydrate synthesis to drive chemical glycomics, Chem. Commun., (2003) 115-1121. 

Khandurina, J., Blnm, D. L., Stege, J. T. and Guttman, A. Automated carbohydrate profiling by capillary electrophoresis a bioindustrial approach. Electrophoresis, 25, 2326, 2004. 

The orcinol-sulfuric acid method, in which the recommended reagent is a solution of orcinol (0.1%, m/v) in diluted sulfuric acid (70%, v/v), was the first to be adapted for use in an automated carbohydrate analyzer. After mixing with the reagent, the column effluent is heated at 95°C for 15 min. Absorbance is usually measured at 420-425 nm howevei measurement at two wavelengths (420 and 510 nm) has been recommended where deoxy sugars or uronic acids are present. 

Keywords Automation Carbohydrate synthesis Oligosaccharides Solid-phase... 

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