Biocombinatorial Chemistry, a Novel Approach Using Phage-Displayed Libraries in Glycobiology

Special Reference to Glyco-Replica Peptides

Abstract

Rapid in vitro screening from various molecular libraries has come of age as a molecular recognition technology, which we refer to as “Biocombinatorial Chemistry”. Phage-displayed library, a biocombinatorial chemistry tool, is a representative method based on the affinity binding between the displayed library and target molecule or tissue. Biopanning with the phage-displayed peptide library has been used to determine the epitope of the target antigen protein. We introduced this method to create peptides, which mimic carbohydrate structure using a monoclonal antibody against the carbohydrate moiety of the glycoconjugate. The peptide obtained by this procedure could mimic the function of the carbohydrate. Based on our observations, we proposed to call those peptides “Glyco-Replica Peptides”. In this review, preparation of the peptides and functional roles of the obtained peptides are described.