Bioorthogonal Staudinger ligation

Fig. 7. Metabolic oligosaccharide engineering via bioorthogonal Staudinger ligation.

To date, four bioorthogonal reactions have been used to label glycans on cells and in lysates hydrazone/oxime formation with ketones, thiol alkylation with maleimides, Staudinger ligation of azides with triaryl phosphines, and copper-catalyzed or strain-promoted [3+2] cycloadditions of alkynes and azides (Figure 5) (25, 26, 32, 34, 35). While each reaction has been used extensively, most recent applications have employed azido- or alkynyl-sugars due to their superior metabolic incorporation and efficient ligations. 

Figure 5. Bioorthogonal reactions on sugars, A. Ketones react with hydrazides to give hydrazones. B. Thiols undergo Michael Reaction with maleimides. C, Azides undergo Staudinger ligation with phosphines or D. strain-promoted or copper catalyzed [3 2] cycloaddition with all nes. E. Alkynes undergo copper-catalyzed [3- 2] cycloaddition with azides.

Figure 1.10 Bioorthogonal approach to combine thiol-ene chemistiy with the Staudinger ligation, resulting in GRGDS-functionalized poly(lactide)-grq -poly(ethylene oxide) copolymers.

---