The activation of fibroblast growth factors by heparin: Synthesis and structural study of rationally modified heparin-like oligosaccharides

Heparin-like hexasaccharide 3 and octasaccharide 4 have been synthesized using a convergent block strategy and their solution conformations have been determined by NMR spectroscopy. Both oligosaccharides contain the basic structural motif of the regular region of heparin but have been constructed as to display negatively charged sulfate groups only on one side of their solution helical structures. This charge distribution along the saccharide chain has been designed to get insight into the proposed mechanism for fibroblast growth factors (FGFs) activation that involves heparin-induced FGF dimerization.