Poster abstracts

Poster number 116 submitted by Wenpeng Zhang

The structure activity relationship study of α-Galactosylceramide

Wenpeng Zhang (Department of Biochemistry, The Ohio State University), Chengfeng Xia (Department of Biochemistry, The Ohio State University), Wenlan Chen, Yalong Zhang (Department of Chemistry, The Ohio State University), Hugo Severin, Michell Kronenberg (La Jolla Institute of Allergy and Immunology), Peng G. Wang (Department of Biochemistry and Chemistry, The Ohio State University)

Abstract:
The glycolipid α-Galactosylceramide (α-GalCer) has been discovered to be the strongest ligand for natural killer T (NKT) cells for a long time and the relationship between the sugar moiety structure and NKT cell stimulation ability has not been fully understood. Here we synthesized a group of α-GalCer analogs with a broad range of modifications on the C3’ and C4’ positions. The biological activities of the analogs were studied. Together with the newly published structure information and computational modeling, an extended understanding of how the structure of sugar moiety affects the glycolipids’ NKT cell stimulation ability was obtained.

Keywords: -GalCer, NKT, Glycolipid