Analysis of Carbohydrate–Carbohydrate Interactions Using Sugar-Functionalized Silicon Nanoparticles for Cell Imaging

Abstract

Protein-carbohydrate binding depends on multivalent ligand display that is even more important for low affinity carbohydrate-carbohydrate interactions. Detection and analysis of these low affinity multivalent binding events are technically challenging. We describe the synthesis of dual-fluorescent sugar-capped silicon nanoparticles that proved to be an attractive tool for the analysis of low affinity interactions. These ultrasmall NPs with sizes of around 4 nm can be used for NMR quantification of coupled sugars. The silicon nanoparticles are employed to measure the interaction between the cancer-associated glycosphingolipids GM3 and Gg3 and the associated kD value by surface plasmon resonance experiments. Cell binding studies, to investigate the biological relevance of these carbohydrate-carbohydrate interactions, also benefit from these fluorescent sugar-capped nanoparticles.

Glyco-gold nanoparticles: synthesis and applications

“…Carbohydrate–carbohydrate interactions (CCIs), generally characterized by K D values in the millimolar range, are very difficult to detect. Updated data confirm the crucial role of these bindings in the regulation of many cellular processes [72], however, researches related to the use of carbohydrate-coated gold nanoparticles to investigate CCIs, are still in their infancy and will be not detailed in the present review [73–74]. On the contrary, a vast number of papers reported the use of glyco-gold nanoparticles as smart nanomaterial, able to recognize and interact with proteins, viruses and peptide hormones.…”

Hyper‐Assembly of Self‐Assembled Glycoclusters Mediated by Specific Carbohydrate–Carbohydrate Interactions

“…For a better understanding of the functional mechanisms relevant to oligosaccharides on cell membranes, it is desirable to develop appropriate models of their clusters . For characterizing carbohydrate–carbohydrate interactions, various glycoclusters have been fabricated by accumulation of carbohydrates on artificial scaffolds such as polymers, nanoparticles, and liposomes, and characterized using analytical techniques such as transmission electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, and surface plasmon resonance measurements . However, the physicochemical and structural properties of carbohydrate clusters remain largely unknown, primarily because of the lack of an appropriate glycocluster model system that combines structural homogeneity and the functional ability to promote carbohydrate–carbohydrate interactions.…”

Water‐Dispersible Fluorescent Silicon Nanoparticles and their Optical Applications

“…On the other hand, instead of proteins, small molecules (e.g., amino acids, peptides, and oligosaccharide, etc.) are used to modify the SiNPs, forming ultrasmall multivalent peptide‐/sugar‐conjugated SiNPs bioprobes . Particularly, Song et al employed the cyclic peptides containing the arginine‐glycine‐aspartic acid sequence (c(RDGyC)) for modifying the SiNPs to produce a kind of peptide‐conjugated SiNPs (defined as SiNPs‐RGD), which simultaneously featured small size (<10 nm), robust and high fluorescence (photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY) ≈ 28%), and desirable biological functionality (targeting tumor‐associated receptor‐α v β 3 integrin) .…”