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Glycofullerenes

Sweet fullerenes vanquish viruses

Nature Chemistry volume 8, pages 4–6 (2016)Cite this article

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Fullerene-based dendritic structures coated with 120 sugars can be made in high yields in a relatively short sequence of reactions. The mannosylated compound is shown to inhibit Ebola infection in cells more efficiently than monofullerene-based glycoclusters.

In addition to their unique electronic properties, fullerenes have also attracted the attention of chemists as building blocks in organic chemistry1. Numerous synthetic strategies have been designed to functionalize them in order to produce multivalent compounds that have a fullerene located at the core of the structure. For example, dodecavalent C60 derivatives are now routinely obtained through multiple Bingel cyclopropanation reactions in which six malonates are added to the fullerene framework2. Unsymmetric systems — that can serve as the basis for more complex molecular architectures — can be obtained by performing successive Bingel reactions with different malonates.

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Figure 1: The synthesis of sugar-coated superballs.

References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sébastien Vidal is at the Institut de Chimie et Biochimie Moléculaires et Supramoléculaires (UMR 5246), Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 and CNRS, 43 Boulevard du 11 Novembre 1918, F-69622 Villeurbanne, France,

    Sébastien Vidal

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  1. Sébastien Vidal
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Correspondence to Sébastien Vidal.

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Vidal, S. Sweet fullerenes vanquish viruses. Nature Chem 8, 4–6 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.2422

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