Stabilization of Mammalian Cells in the Dry State

Conformational properties of glucose-based disaccharides investigated using molecular dynamics simulations with local elevation umbrella sampling

“…Carbohydrates play a key role in numerous aspects of biology, biochemistry, and technology 1-7 including, for example, structure preservation and cell protection in various organisms, [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] energy storage and interconversion in all living cells, 12,13,17,18 intra-and intercellular recognition processes, [3][4][5][6][7][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29] cell preservation under extreme environmental conditions, [30][31][32][33][34] source of building blocks for cofactors or biomolecules, 12,13 and technological use in the design of new (biocompatible and biodegradable) materials. [35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43] Some theories also attribute to these compounds a primordial role in the origins of life on earth.…”

Conformation, dynamics, solvation and relative stabilities of selected β-hexopyranoses in water: a molecular dynamics study with the gromos 45A4 force field

“…In the past few years, the scientific community has shown a renewed interest for carbohydrates, 1,2 due to the key role they play in numerous biochemical and technological processes, [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] as well as their potential for the design of new materials. 16 However, while experimental data on oligo-and polysaccharides (both in the solid state and in solution) are relatively abundant, the present knowledge concerning their monosaccharide building blocks remains surprisingly fragmentary (and widely scattered across the scientific literature).…”

Trehalose transporter 1, a facilitated and high-capacity trehalose transporter, allows exogenous trehalose uptake into cells

“…Trehalose [␣-D-glucopyranosyl-(1,1)-␣-Dglucopyranoside, Glc(␣1-1␣)Glc], however, has multiple functions that distinguish it from other common disaccharides. These functions include the following: (i) protection as a ''chemical chaperone'' or an antioxidant against stresses such as desiccation, heat, low temperature, and high and low oxygen (1)(2)(3)(4)(5); (ii) prevention of osteoporosis by disturbing osteoclast differentiation (6); (iii) alleviation of polyglutamine and polyalanine diseases such as Huntington's disease (7) and oculopharyngeal muscular dystrophy (8), respectively, probably by preventing abnormal protein aggregation; (iv) induction of the mammalian target of rapamycin-independent autophagy, causing the clearance of mutant proteins associated with Huntington's disease and Parkinson's disease (9); and (v) control of growth and inflorescence blanching in plants by acting as a signal molecule (10)(11)(12).…”