Imaging the glycome in living systems.

ABSTRACT

The glycome, the full complement of glycans that cells produce, is an attractive target for molecular imaging. Imaging of the glycome in living systems has recently been enabled via bioorthogonal chemical reporter-based approaches. In this chapter, we describe two approaches to introduce bioorthogonal chemical reporters (tags) onto cell surface fucosylated glycans and glycans bearing LacNAc disaccharides, respectively. The tagged glycans can then be conjugated to imaging probes via bioorthogonal click chemistry. Similar approaches can be extended to image other sectors of the glycome in living systems.