Abstract

Carbohydrate recognition is one of the most sophisticated recognitionprocesses in biological systems. Given the importance of carbohydraterecognition, it is not surprising that design and synthesis of artificialreceptors for these important biological substrates has attracteda great deal of attention in biomimetic chemistry. Among variousapproaches, peptides offer enormous diversity and potential for designand synthesis of selective carbohydrate receptors. Current effortsare mainly focused on the design of receptors for monosaccharidesor short oligosaccharides. Flexible as well as conformationallypreorganized peptides capable of binding simple carbohydratesin water with affinities comparable to lectins have been prepared.Advances in this field may help the development of new molecularprobes for variety of bioanalytical and biomedical applications.