Their emerging nature as multifunctional effectors explains the large interest to monitor glycan binding to galectins and to define bound-state conformer(s) of their ligands in solution. Basically, NMR spectroscopy facilitates respective experiments. Towards developing new and even better approaches for these purposes, extending the range of exploitable isotopes beyond 1H, 13C, and 15N offers promising perspectives. Having therefore prepared selenodigalactoside and revealed its bioactivity as galectin ligand, monitoring of its binding by 77Se NMR spectroscopy at a practical level becomes possible by setting up a 2D 1H, 77Se CPMG-HSQBMC experiment including CPMG-INEPT long-range transfer. This first step into applying 77Se as sensor for galectin binding substantiates its potential for screening relative to inhibitory potencies in compound mixtures and for achieving sophisticated epitope mapping. The documented strategic combination of synthetic carbohydrate chemistry and NMR spectroscopy prompts to envision to work with isotopically pure 77Se-containing β-galactosides and to build on the gained experience with 77Se by adding 19F as second sensor in doubly labeled glycosides.
Keywords: 77Se NMR; Galectin; HSQMBC; Selenoglycoside; Thiodigalactoside.
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