Assigning kinetic 3D-signatures to glycocodes

Reconciling glycocodes and their associated bioactivities, via 3D-structure, will rationalise burgeoning high-throughput functional glycomics data and underpin a new era of opportunity in chemical biology. A major impasse to achieving this goal is a detailed understanding of pyranose sugar ring 3D-conformation (or pucker) and the affiliated microsecond-timescale exchange kinetics. Here, we perform hardware-accelerated kinetically-rigorous equilibrium simulations of fundamental monosaccharides to produce the hypothesis that pyranoses have microsecond-timescale kinetic puckering signatures in water, classified as unstable (rare in the glycome), metastable (infrequently observed) and stable (prevalent). The predicted μs-metastability of β-D-glucose explained hitherto irreconcilable experimental measurements. Twisted puckers seen in carbohydrate enzymes were present in the aqueous 3D-ensemble (suggesting preorganization) and pyranose-water interactions accounted for the relative stability of β-D-galactose. Characteristic 3D-shapes for biologically- and commercially-important carbohydrates and new rules linking chemical modifications with pyranose μs-puckering kinetics are proposed. The observations advance structural-glycomics towards dynamic 3D-templates suitable for structure-based design.