Carbohydrate Chemistry: State of the Art and Challenges for Drug Development

Abstract

The circulating glucose serves as a fuel for energy metabolism and as substrate for biosynthesis of polysaccharides, lipids, nucleic acids, and proteins. The growing knowledge about carbohydrate involvement in physiological and pathological states has spurred renewed interest in the chemistry, biology and therapeutic for the potentialities of these natural compounds. Moreover, the need of carbohydrate multivalent activities has led to the synthesis of a plethora of compounds based on different scaffolds. Their language requires, in fact, a huge effort to be learned, but is meant to be one the most spoken in the future of drug development.