Carbohydrate flexibility

Figure 15.17 The three-dimensional structure of an intact IgG. Hinge regions connecting the Fab arms with the Fc stem are relatively flexible, despite the presence of disulfide bonds in this region linking the heavy and light chains. Carbohydrate residues that bridge the two Ch2 domains are not shown. (Courtesy of A. McPherson and L. Harris, Nature 360 369-372, 1992, by copyright permission of Macmillan Magazines Limited.)...

Extracellular matrix The surfaces of animal cells are covered with a flexible and sticky layer of complex carbohydrates, proteins, and lipids. This complex coating is cell-specific, serves in cell-cell recognition and communication, creates cell adhesion, and provides a protective outer layer. 

Morris G.A., Patel T.R., Picout D.R., Ross-Murphy S.B., Ortega A., Garcia de la Torre J., Harding S.E. 2008. Global hydrodynamic analysis of the molecular flexibility of galactomannans. Carbohydrate Polymers 72, 356-360. 

There has been considerable recent activity developing appropriate parameters to allow semi-empirical methods to describe a variety of biologically important systems, and their related properties, such as (i) enzyme reactivity, including both over- and through-barrier processes, (ii) conformations of flexible molecules such as carbohydrates, (iii) reactivity of metalloenzymes and (iv) the prediction of non-covalent interactions by addition of an empirical dispersive correction. In this review, we first outline our developing parameterisation strategy and then discuss progress that has been made in the areas outlined above. 

Alternative strategies utilizing the initial introduction of suitable chemical functionality onto the fullerene have been adopted by several research groups, allowing conjugation of the saccharides with complementary functions in the final synthetic steps. This approach has led to improved flexibility with the chemical functions on the carbohydrate moieties, especially the anchoring ones, and a better control on the number of attached saccharide residues. 

The components of the plant cell wall (8-21) are the middle lamella (intercellular substance), the primary wall, and the secondary wall. The middle lamella is the pectic layer between cells and holds adjoining cells together as do membrane carbohydrates. The primary wall is thin (1-3 pm) and flexible containing cellulose, hemicelluloses, pectins, and glycoproteins. This wall provides mechanical strength, maintains cell shape,... 

Generalization of the above results to different alkynes and different carbohydrate-based thionocarbamates showed the flexibility of the method for C C bond formation on either the aromatic OXTs or non aromatic OZTs in building up a small library of analogues (Scheme 66). 

Rolling involves sequential attachment and detachment of the leukocyte with the endothelium. The selectin receptors bind very quickly and tether via recognition of their carbohydrate moieties with the ends of flexible pro-... 

NMR is a remarkably flexible technique that can be effectively used to address many analytical issues in the development of biopharmaceutical products. Although it is already more than 50 years old, NMR is still underutilized in the biopharmaceutical industry for solving process-related analytical problems. In this chapter, we have described many simple and useful NMR applications for biopharmaceutical process development and validation. In particular, quantitative NMR analysis is perhaps the most important application. It is suitable for quantitating small organic molecules with a detection limit of 1 to 10 p.g/ml. In general, only simple one-dimensional NMR experiments are required for quantitative analysis. The other important application of NMR in biopharmaceutical development is the structural characterization of molecules that are product related (e.g., carbohydrates and peptide fragments) or process related (e.g., impurities and buffer components). However, structural studies typically require sophisticated multidimensional NMR experiments. 

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