Recent advances in synthesis of diverse glycopeptides and glycohybrids

Glycopeptides and glycohybrids are an important class of molecules due to their potential of being used as a drug for the treatment of several human diseases. They also play a very important role in cell–cell communication, host–pathogen interactions, cell division, and so on and therefore are considered molecules of interest in the chemical biology and medicinal chemistry community. Therefore much attention has been paid by the scientific community to the development of new synthetic routes to construct diverse glycopeptides. In glycopeptides, the glycan part is linked to the amino acid residue of a protein or peptide as Asn/Arg/Lys for N-linked glycopeptides, Ser/Thr/HyPro/HyLys/Tyr for O-linked glycopeptides, and Cys or its derivatives for S-linked glycopeptides. Whereas in glycohybrids, glycan parts can be merged, fused, or linked with privileged drug-like molecules. Glycopeptides and glycohybrids are important sources of templates for the design and development of drug candidates but their natural occurrence is limited. Therefore the development of new synthetic methods is needed to prepare a diverse class of glycopeptides and glycohybrids, which is a challenge for the researchers due to the presence of multiple reaction sites and stereo diversity in carbohydrate molecules. Continuous efforts were being made by synthetic communities around the globe to construct such molecules efficiently and stereoselectively in larger quantities. This chapter comprises the recent developments in the chemical synthesis of glycopeptides in solution, automated, and/or solid-phase and glycohybrids.