Oligosaccharide Sensing in Aqueous Media Using Porphyrin-Curdlan Conjugates: An Allosteric Signal-Amplification System.

A series of porphyrin-curdlan conjugates 1-5 of varying degree of substitution (DS) were synthesized to examine their morphological features, chiroptical properties, and oligosaccharide sensing in aqueous media, particularly for tetrasaccharide acarbose, which is a drug to treat type-2 diabetes. The random coil state of compounds 1-5 in DMSO becomes the globule curdlan-saccharide coaggregate upon interaction of acarbose in aqueous DMSO solution to induce various circular dichroism (CD) responses. The high cooperativity and positive homotropic allosterism were observed in the acarbose recognition, enabling the allosteric signal-amplification sensing, for which the DS, stacking character, and microenvironmental polarity changes of the tethered porphyrin reporters are likely to be responsible.