Table 3 Comparison of three strategies for complex glycan production
| Â | Chemical synthesis | Enzymatic synthesis | Reverse synthesis |
|---|---|---|---|
Starting material | Monosaccharides | Monosaccharides,Sugar nucleotides | Glycoconjugates |
Protecting group | Multiple protecting groups | Not needed | Single protecting group(tag) at reducing end |
Reagents | Solvents, activator, catalysts, etc. | multiple enzymes, buffers | Bleach, tag installation and removal |
Operation | Various reaction conditions, special expertise required | Easy | Easy |
Scale | milligram to gram | milligram to gram | milligram to gram |
Purification | Relatively simple | Relatively simple | Multi-dimensional HPLC |
Library synthesis | Mostly linear | Could be parallel | Parallel |
biomedical relevance of products | Un-certain | Likely | Nearly certain |
Major advantage | Chemical versatility | Easy operation | Product diversity and biological relevance |
Major bottle neck | High technical threshhold, labor intensive | Enzyme availability, reagents cost | Intensive purification and structural identification |
Automation perspective | Developing | Developing | High potential |
