Rewriting the bacterial glycocalyx via Suzuki–Miyaura cross-coupling

Abstract

Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling has been used to couple novel carbohydrate-based boronic acids, site-selectively, to the surface of E. coli at an unnatural amino acid. In this way, benign metal-catalyzed cellular switching allowed modulation of interactions with biomolecular partners via prokaryotic O-glycosylation mimics.