Sweet switching: Development of photoswitchable glycoconjugates -Mini-Review

Photochromism, a reversible photo-induced transformation of a molecule between two isomers having distinguishably different absorption spectra, has found increasing applications in materials science, chemistry, biology and pharmacology. In this review, we summarize our recent efforts on the development of photoswitchable carbohydrates and their conjugates. Synthesis, photophysical properties and potential applications of azobenzenefunctionalized glycomacrolactones and glycolipids, as well as multichromophoric sugar bearing diarylethene photochrome and dicyanomethylene-4H-pyran fluorophore will be discussed and compared.