Sugar-bearing monomer

Oligonucleotides bearing acyclic sugar moieties in their structure were also suggested as plausible pre-RNA and pre-DNA molecules. Acyclonu-cleosides, such as glyceronucleosides, were studied as achiral monomers... 

An optically active PPy 17 has also been synthesized by the electropolymerization of pyrrole monomer bearing a homochiral sugar covalently attached to the pyrrole nitrogen.132 This chiral polymer discriminated between (+)- and (-)- cam-phorsulfonate ions as potential anionic dopants in cyclic voltammetry studies. 

Whereas natural monomers like terpenes and sugars constitute building blocks for a limited number of macromolecular structures, associated with their own peculiar chemical features, the realm of furan polymers bears a qualitatively different connotation in that it resembles the context of petrol refinery, that is, it is open to a whole domain of monomers, whose only specificity is the fact that they all incorporate the furan heterocycle in their structure. This state of affairs stems from the fact that, as in petroleum chemistry, saccharide-based renewable resources are used to produce two first-generation furan derivatives, which constitute the substrates capable of being converted into a vast array of monomers and hence a correspondingly large number of macromolecular structures associated with materials possessing different properties and applications [34]. 

In comparison to nucleic add or peptide chemistry, the chemistry of carbohydrates remains relatively difficult and challenging. In this context, the direct polymerization of monomers bearing monosaccharide or oligosaccharide moieties is a very convenient method for preparing sugar-based macromolecules. This particular aspect has been comprehensively described in an excellent recent review of Ladmiral et Thus, the following section presents only a concise overview of this field of research and highlights principally recent examples. 

Neutral, water-soluble styrenic monomers that have been polymerized in the presence of nitroxides are, for instance, those that bear a sugar moiety (see Section 3.10.4.4.1 for details) as a ring substituent leading to glycopolymers " or styrenic macromonomers of poly(ethylene oxide). ... 

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