Iminosugar C-Glycosides Work as Pharmacological Chaperones of NAGLU, a Glycosidase Involved in MPS IIIB Rare Disease*.

Mucopolysaccharidosis type IIIB is a devastating neurological disease caused by a lack of the lysosomal enzyme, α-N-acetylglucosaminidase (NAGLU), leading to a toxic accumulation of heparan sulfate. Herein we explored a pharmacological chaperone approach to enhance the residual activity of NAGLU in patient fibroblasts. Capitalizing on the three-dimensional structures of two modest homoiminosugar-based NAGLU inhibitors in complex with bacterial homolog of NAGLU, CpGH89, we have synthesized a library of 17 iminosugar C-glycosides mimicking N-acetyl-D-glucosamine and bearing various pseudo-anomeric substituents of both α- and ß-configuration. Elaboration of the aglycon moiety results in low micromolar selective inhibitors of human recombinant NAGLU, but surprisingly it is the non-functionalized and wrongly configured ß-homoiminosugar that was proved to act as the most promising pharmacological chaperone, promoting a 2.4 fold activity enhancement of mutant NAGLU at its optimal concentration.

Synthesis and chelation study of a fluoroionophore and a glycopeptide based on an aza crown iminosugar structure.

Capitalizing on a recently reported iminosugar-based aza-crown (ISAC) accessed by a double Staudinger azaWittig coupling reaction, we have expanded the structural diversity of this new family of sweet cyclam analogs. Replacement of the two secondary amines linking the iminosugar units by two amide bonds obtained a cyclodimerization by with BOP and DIPEA led to a macrocycle that did not demonstrate efficient Zn2+ chelation unlike the parent ISAC. Introduction of two pyrene moieties on the secondary amines of the parent ISAC yielded a new fluoroionophore that selectively binds Hg2+ in methanol.

Ginnalin B induces differentiation markers and modulates the proliferation/differentiation balance via the upregulation of NOTCH1 in human epidermal keratinocytes.

The red maple and sugar maple (Acer rubrum and A. saccharum, respectively) contain acertannins (ginnalins and maplexins), galloylated derivatives of 1,5-anhydro-d-glucitol (1,5-AG, 1). These compounds have a variety of potential medicinal properties and we have shown that some of them promote the expression of ceramide synthase 3. We now report on the beneficial effects of ginnalin B, (6-O-galloyl-1,5-AG, 5), leading to acceleration of skin metabolism and reduction of the turnover time. Ginnalin B dose-dependently increased the relative amount of keratin 10, keratin 1, and filaggrin gene, with maximal increase of 1.7-, 2.9, and 5.2-fold at 100 µM, respectively. The validation study showed that it had superior capacity to induce multiple stages of keratinocyte differentiation and significantly elevated the immunostaining site of keratin 10 and filaggrin in a 3-dimensional cultured human skin model, by 1.2 and 2.8-fold, respectively. Furthermore, ginnalin B caused the arrest of proliferation at the G0/G1 phase but it did not induce apoptotic cell death in normal human keratinocytes. Molecular studies revealed that ginnalin B up-regulated the levels of NOTCH1 and a concomitant increase p21 expression. Ginnalin B, therefore, represents a new class of promising functional and medical cosmetic compound and it could contribute to the maintenance of homeostasis of the epidermis.