Abstract
Access to homogeneous high-mannose glycans in high-mg quantities is necessary for carbohydrate-based HIV vaccine development research. We have used directed evolution to design highly antigenic oligomannose clusters that are recognized in low-nM affinity by HIV antibodies. Herein we report an optimized large-scale synthesis of Man(9)GlcNAc(2) including improved building block synthesis and a fully stereoselective 5 + 6 coupling, yielding 290 mg of glycan. We then use this glycan to study the effect of the GlcNAc(2) core on the antigenicity of an evolved 2G12-binding glycopeptide, 10F2.