AUTHOR=Gerbst Alexey G. , Krylov Vadim B. , Nifantiev Nikolay E. TITLE=Computational and NMR Conformational Analysis of Galactofuranoside Cycles Presented in Bacterial and Fungal Polysaccharide Antigens JOURNAL=Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences VOLUME=Volume 8 - 2021 YEAR=2021 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/molecular-biosciences/articles/10.3389/fmolb.2021.719396 DOI=10.3389/fmolb.2021.719396 ISSN=2296-889X ABSTRACT=Unlike pyranoside cycles which are generally characterized with strictly defined conformational preferences, furanosides are flexible and may adopt a wide range of available conformations. During our previous studies conformational changes of galactofuranoside cycles upon total sulfation were described computationally using simple Hartree-Fock (HF) method and principal conformers of the 5-membered galactose ring were revealed. However, in case of more complex disaccharide structures it was found that this method, as well as the widely applied DFT-B3LYP, produced results that deviated from experimental evidences. In this paper other DFT functionals (PBE0 and double hybrid B2PLYP) along with RI-MP2 are employed to study the conformational behavior of the galactofuranoside ring. Reinvestigation of galactofuranosides with lactic acid substituent at O-3 revealed that changes in orientation of lactic acid residue at O-3 might induce conformational changes of furanoside cycle. Such findings are important for further modelling of carbohydrate-protein interaction.