Glycomimetic Peptides as Modulators of Lectin-Type Receptors

Glycobiology is an integrative science, crossing the fields of chemistry, biology, medicine, and materials science. Defined in the broadest sense, glycobiology is the study of the structure, biosynthesis and biology of glycans (carbohydrates). A special family of lectin-type receptor modulators has been created as a result of the introduction of peptides to glycobiology. Even though many and well-known peptides are active as endocrine regulatory factors that bind to specific receptors, and peptides have been extensively used as epitopes for vaccine production, the use of peptides that mimic sugars as ligands of lectin-type receptors has opened a novel way to modulate immune cell activity. Ground-breaking work that initiated the use of peptides as tools for therapy has identified sugar mimetics by screening phage display libraries. The peptides that have been discovered show significant potential as high-avidity drug candidates when synthesized as multivalent structures. The flexibility of peptides provides significant advantages over sugars as therapeutic tools. To assess a popular docking program for modeling peptide binding to lectin-type receptors, we first examine an intriguing naturally occurring peptide that interacts with a sugar-binding site with a high level of avidity.