Glycopolymer-based drugs for immunotherapy have attracted increasing attention because the affinity between glycans and proteins plays an important role in immune responses. Previous studies indicate that the polymer chain length influences the affinity. In the studies on enhancing the immune response by glycans, it is found that both oligosaccharides and long-chain glycopolymers work well. However, there is a lack of systematic studies on the immune enhancement effect and the binding ability of oligomers and polymers to immune-related proteins. In this paper, to study the influence of the chain length, glycopolymers based on N-acetylglucosamine with different chain lengths were synthesized, and their interaction with immune-related proteins and their effect on dendritic cell maturation were evaluated. It was proved that compared with l-glycopolymers (degree of polymerization (DP) > 20), s-glycopolymers (DP < 20) showed better binding ability to the dendritic cell-specific ICAM-3-grabbing nonintegrin protein and the toll-like receptor 4 and myeloid differentiation factor 2 complex protein by quartz crystal microbalance and molecular docking simulation. When the total sugar unit amounts are equal, s-glycopolymers are proved to be superior in promoting dendritic cell maturation by detecting the expression level of CD80 and CD86 on the surface of dendritic cells. Through the combination of experimental characterization and theoretical simulation, a deep look into the interaction between immune-related proteins and glycopolymers with different chain lengths is helpful to improve the understanding of the immune-related interactions and provides a good theoretical basis for the design of new glycopolymer-based immune drugs.

The search for novel fluorescent materials has attracted the attention of many researchers. Numerous bioimaging materials based on the aggregation-induced emission (AIE) units have been surging and could be employed in wide areas during the past two decades. In recent few years, the appearance of nonconventional fluorescence emitters without aromatic conjugated structures provides another bioimaging candidate which has the advantage of enhanced biodegradability and relatively low cost, and their luminescent mechanism can be explained by clustering-triggered emission (CTE) like AIE. In our contribution, we utilize nonaromatic sugar as a monomer to prepare a series of glycopolymers with designed components through sunlight-induced reversible addition fragmentation chain transfer polymerization; these glycopolymers can be employed in bioimaging fields due to the bioactivity coming from sugar and CTE capacity.

Diseases induced by bacterial and viral infections are common occurrences in our daily life, and the main prevention and treatment strategies are vaccination and taking antibacterial/antiviral drugs. However, vaccines can only be used for specific viral infections, and the abuse of antibacterial/antiviral drugs will create multi−drug−resistant bacteria and viruses. Therefore, it is necessary to develop more targeted prevention and treatment methods against bacteria and viruses. Proteins on the surface of bacteria and viruses can specifically bind to sugar, so glycopolymers can be used as potential antibacterial and antiviral drugs. In this review, the research of glycopolymers for bacterial/viral detection/inhibition and antibacterial/antiviral applications in recent years are summarized.

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