Session: General Posters:

Sialic acids are nine-carbon monosaccharides belong to a-keto carboxylic acids that are named as nonulosonic acids. In addition to more than fifty forms of sialic acid forms that have been found in vertebrates and some pathogenic bacterial strains, some bacteria synthesize nonulosonic acids that have not been found in vertebrates. These includes 5,7-di-N-acetyl legionaminic acid (Leg5,7Ac₂) and its derivatives which have been reported as the component of lipopolysaccharides (LPS) and capsular polysaccharides (CPS) of pathogenic bacteria such as Campylobacter jejuni, Enterobacter cloacae, Acinetobacter baumannii and Cronobacter turicensis. Our approach to fight bacterial infections is to develop synthetic oligosaccharides which mimics the LPS or CPS. We have chemically synthesized the six carbon precursors of Leg5,7Ac₂ derivatives from commercially available mannose, N-acetylmannosamine (ManNAc), or D-fucose. These compounds have been used in an efficient one-pot multi-enzyme (OPME) chemoenzymatic methods for synthesizing a2-3/6-linked glycans containing Leg5,7Ac₂ or derivatives. The synthetic strategies and results will be reported.

Xi Chen

University of California Davis

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