Probing multivalency in ligand–receptor-mediated adhesion of soft, biomimetic interfaces

• Stephan Schmidt,
• Hanqing Wang,
• Daniel Pussak,
• Simone Mosca and
• Laura Hartmann

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2015, 11, 720–729, doi:10.3762/bjoc.11.82

• simply mediated by the high number of ligand–receptor interactions. Keywords: bio-interfaces; cell mimetic; glycocalyx; glycopolymer; molecular recognition; RICM; specific adhesion; Introduction Vast amounts of biological processes are mediated by interactions between membrane proteins and

• deformation is a measure of the sum over all specific interactions between the carbohydrate ligand and the protein receptor layer. Detection of the interaction energy is straight forward using the contact area of the SCP with the protein layer via reflection interference contrast microscopy (RICM) (Figure 1

• -functionalized SCPs with varying degree of functionalization and variation of ligand presentation. The sugar SCPs were then applied in the previously developed SCP-RICM adhesion assay which can be considered as model systems for the interaction of a cell glycocalyx with a protein receptor surface. The results