Starfish ligand

Figure 7 (a) Stereodiagram of the crystallographic dimer of the beta-subunit pentamers of SLT-1 hnked by the STARFISH ligand,... 

While the STARFISH ligand produced stunning in vitro results, unfortunately its protective ability against infection in vivo was much less pronounced. In order to improve the in vivo protective effects, a second layer of multivalency was added when a similar scaffold was used to present a novel ligand, BAIT (40 Figure 15) that was designed... 

Figure 14 Structures of STARFISH and DAISY Shiga toxin inhibitors. The decavalent glycan display involves the attachment of a bivalent ligand (designated by R groups) onto a glucose scaffold.

With this result in hand. Bundle and coworkers tethered divalent ligand 38 to a central glucose core to create multivalent binder 39, affectionately named STARFISH. This scaffold presents a total of 10 trisaccharide ligands. 

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