ABSTRACT Carbohydrates in various forms play vital roles in numerous critical biological processes including cell-cell adhesion and communication, embryo development, immune response, etc. Fluorescent sensors for such carbohydrates have a wide range of potential applications including glucose concentration determination, cell labeling and targeting based on carbohydrate biomarkers, as in vitro diagnostic tools, and biomarker-directed cellular imaging. Our group has been interested in the design and synthesis of multi-boronic acid compounds with well-defined three-dimensional scaffolding for the specific recognition of selected carbohydrate biomarkers. Aberrant expression of carbohydrate antigens such as sialyl Lewis X (sLex), sialyl Lewis A (sLea), Lewis X (Lex), and Lewis Y (Ley) have been associated with tumor formation and metastasis in various cancer types.1-4 As such, for our initial design, we have selected sialyl Lewis X (sLex) as our potential target due to implication in the development of liver and colon cancer.5, 6 Herein, we describe the design, synthesis and evaluation of four such compounds, each having about ten linear steps in its synthesis. In addition to the design of fluorescent probes for cell surface carbohydrates, we also have designed lipophilic boronic acid derivatives as potential fusogenic agents. Due to boronic acid¡¯s ability to bind to 1,2 and 1,3 cis diols, we hypothesize that the aliphatic chain should be able to insert into lipid cellular membrane and the boronic acid units should allow for the ¡°attachment to neighboring cells¡± through complexation with cell surface glycans. Such interactions should allow the boronic acid compounds to bring two or more cells together for fusion. Herein, we have described the methodologies of the design of such compounds. INDEX WORDS: Boronic acid, sialyl Lewis X probe, boronolectin, fluorescence, sensor, cell-cell fusion, fusogen, immunotherapy.

Carbohydrates have an essentials role in wide range of biological phenomena. It is well known that most of the eukaryotic proteins are glycosylated and that their glycosylation undergoes dynamic changes, nevertheless the biological imperative for these modifications is still not fully understood. However, one area in which the importace of cell surface glycosylation has recently been the subject of active investigations is the tumor plasma membrane biology, where many changes in glycosylation have been found useful for diagnosis, and mostly recent, even for the therapies of malignant disease. Interestingly cell surface glycoconjugates, namely N-linked and O-linked oligosaccharides have been found therapeutically attractive for treatment of certain tumors. And although our understanding of the participation of these principal glycan classes in tumorigenesis is far from complete, there are already several examples of carbohydrate-based antitumor vaccines. Therefore, we decided to give this issue more attention, especially the molecular mechanisms responsible for identifying changes in glycosylation of the surface of tumor cells of the immune system. Although in the past in our laboratory identified a receptor-type lectin specific lectin receptors on natural killer cells, very little is yet known...