Competition experiments were used to determine that the 4-OH of a 2-deoxy-2-azidoglucose derivative is more reactive than that of the corresponding N-phthalimido glucose derivative which, in turn, is more easily glycosylated than the N-acetyl derivative. Glycosylation of the 4-OH groups of the N,N-diacetyl and N-acetyl-N-benzyl glucosamine was also found to be superior to that of the simple N-acetyl substance. The 3-O-picolinyl ether of a 4,6-O-benzylidene-protected N-acetylglucosamine was shown to have a strong intramolecular hydrogen bond to the adjacent acetamide group. This interaction does not persist in the 3-O-picolinyl-6-O-benzyl N-acetylglucosamine derivative, owing to a probable competing hydrogen bond between the 4-OH and the picolinyl ether. However, in the 3-O-picolinyl-4-O-benzyl N-acetylglucosamine regioisomer the picolinyl-acetamide hydrogen bond persists and leads to an enhancement of reactivity of the 6-OH, over and above that in the corresponding 3-O-benzyl ether, due to disruption of the typical intermolecular amide hydrogen bonding scheme. It is demonstrated that the picolinyl ether is readily removed by hydrogenolysis at atmospheric pressure and room temperature.

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The conserved oligomannose epitope, Man9GlcNAc2, recognized by the broadly neutralizing human mAb 2G12 is an attractive prophylactic vaccine candidate for the prevention of HIV-1 infection. We recently reported total chemical synthesis of a series of glycopeptides incorporating one to three copies of Man 9GlcNAc2 coupled to a cyclic peptide scaffold. Surface plasmon resonance studies showed that divalent and trivalent, but not monovalent, compounds were capable of binding 2G12. To test the efficacy of the divalent glycopeptide as an immunogen capable of inducing a 2G12-like neutralizing antibody response, we covalently coupled the molecule to a powerful immune-stimulating protein carrier and evaluated immunogenicity of the conjugate in two animal species. We used a differential immunoassay to demonstrate induction of high levels of carbohydrate-specific antibodies; however, these antibodies showed poor recognition of recombinant gp160 and failed to neutralize a panel of viral isolates in entry-based neutralization assays. To ascertain whether antibodies produced during natural infection could recognize the mimetics, we screened a panel of HIV-1-positive and -negative sera for binding to gp120 and the synthetic antigens. We present evidence from both direct and competitive binding assays that no significant recognition of the glycopeptides was observed, although certain sera did contain antibodies that could compete with 2G12 for binding to recombinant gp120. molecular mimicry ͉ neutralizing antibody

Synthetic gp120331-335 glycopeptide fragments carrying hybrid and high-mannose type N-linked glycans were evaluated for binding to broadly neutralizing antibody 2G12 using surface plasmon resonance technology. None of the hybrid-type constructs demonstrated binding to 2G12. In the high-mannose series, the "Cys dimer" construct, presenting two undecasaccharide glycans, showed significantly higher binding than the Cys-protected monomer. The binding of the dimeric structure was further investigated in competition with recombinant gp120. The data suggest that gp120 and its designed synthetic epitope construct bind to the same site on 2G12.