In this work, carbohydrate-based systems designed as artificial ion transporters have been surveyed.
Despite the large structural diversity and ease of manipulations of carbohydrates, in principle endowed
with a variety of desirable properties for ionophoric activity, only few examples of sugar-containing
compounds have been reported in the literature for these purposes. The most remarkable example is
the family of modified b-cyclodextrins, resulting in active cation and/or anion transporters when long,
flexible n-alkyl or oligo-ethylene or butylene glycol chains are appended at the lower rim of the macrocycle.
Interesting features have been also found in amphiphilic CyPLOS (Cyclic Phosphate-Linked
Oligosaccharide) dimers, that is macrocycles with two phenyl-b-D-glucopyranoside residues, 4,6-linked
through phosphodiester bonds, derivatized with tetraethylene glycol tentacles. A wider repertoire of
available carbohydrate-based scaffolds is expected to largely stimulate the discovery of novel, efficient
artificial ionophores, of great interest for both technological and biomedical applications.
