Posted by Matthieu Sollogoub, professor of Biological and Supramolecular Glycochemistry at Sorbonne University gave a plenary lecture at the 20th International Cyclodextrin Symposium. He has devoted his research to carbohyrate chemistry since his PhD. (“My favorite molecule is glucose! he said.) Among his ~140 scientific papers he has published over 15 papers in Angewandte Chemie (impact factor >15).
The title of his presentation at ICS 20 was a question: ARE WE DOOMED TO SEE CYCLODEXTRINS AS ARTIFICIAL PROTEINS?
Since Breslow’s “artificial enzyme”,[1] Cyclodextrins have been seen as potential protein mimics. However, a bottle-neck for their development was the lack of efficient regioselective functionalization. Over the years, we delineated several strategies to access poly-heterofunctionalized cyclodextrins.[2] However, not to step on the toes of the giants who used them as enzyme mimics, we purposedly developed cyclodextrins as platforms for metal centers to operate catalysis.[3] However, we serendipitously found a way to encapsulate metals inside the cavity and were drawn back to enzyme mimickry.[4] The same story happened with a project on transfection,[5] where cyclodextrins unexpectedly self-assembled in a capsid-protein way (Fig. 1). (Abstract book)
- Breslow, R.; Overman, L. E. J. Am. Chem. Soc., 1970, 92, 1075-1077.
- Sollogoub, M. et al. Nature Commun., 2014, 5, 5354; Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2021, 60, 12090.
- Sollogoub, M. et al. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2010, 49, 2314.
- Sollogoub, M. et al. Chem, 2017, 3, 174.
- Sollogoub, M. et al. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2018, 57, 7753.