Synthesis and antigenicity against human sera of a biotin-labeled oligosaccharide portion of a glycosphingolipid from the parasite Echinococcus multilocularis

Synthesis of a biotinylated analog of the carbohydrate portion of a glycosphingolipid from the parasite Echinococcus multilocularis has been achieved. We synthesized β-D-Galp-(1→6)-β-D-Galp-(1→6)-[α-L-Fucp-(1→3)]-β-D-Galp-(1→R: biotin probe) (1) and compared the antigenicity by an enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) with biotinylated trisaccharide α-D-Galp-(1→4)-β-D-Galp-(1→3)-α-D-Galp-(1→R: biotin probe) (F), which has been shown to have significant antigenicity. Both of the oligosaccharides reacted with sera of alveolar echinococcosis (AE) patients, but showed different reactivity. Among the 60 sera of AE patients, more sera reacted with the linear sequence Galα1→4Galβ1→3GalNAcα1→R of oligosaccharide (F) than for branched compound 1. Some sera showed high specificity to one of the compound, indicating that the antibodies in the sera of AE patients differ in their specificity to recognize carbohydrate sequences of glycosphingolipids. Our results demonstrate that both of the biotinylated oligosaccharides 1 and F have good serodiagnostic potential and are complementary to detect infections caused by the parasite Echinococcus multilocularis.