Glycodendrimer multivalent structures

Owing to the weakness of carbohydrate receptor-protein interactions, in order to attain biological meaningful affinities for the receptor, carbohydrates very often need to be clustered and expressed in multiple copies. For this purpose glycodendrimers, which are multivalent glycoconjugates with well-defined chemical structures, have received recent attention for their considerable potential as tools for studying cell-surface protein-carbohydrate interactions, because of the affinity enhancement obtained by multivalency. 

Glycodendrimers are useful for generating the multivalency important for protein-carbohydrate interactions and for many biomedical applications. Nevertheless, the formation of these structures is most often a laborious task. The... 

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