The University of Rennes 1 Gineste Prize in Chemistry Awarded to Pauline Peltier-Pain
The Gineste Prize is named after Pierre Gineste (1913-1961), a former histology professor at the University of Rennes. The prize is awarded each year to outstanding students and theses in Medicine and Chemistry.
The President of the University of Rennes 1 awarded the Gineste Prize in Chemistry to Pauline Peltier-Pain for her PhD thesis she defended in front of both Rennes 1.
Furanosyl nucleotides: synthesis and anti-mycobacterial activities
Furanosides are original glycosides which are presents in several micro-organisms, particulary in pathogenic species, such as those responsible for tuberculosis, leprae, Chagas diseases... The fact that those glycoconjugates are absent in mammal makes those five-membered ring sugars, valuable targets to design new pharmacophores and/or treatments. Therefore, a better understanding of furanoconjugates's biosynthetic pathways is a crucial step of this new therapeutic strategy. This report presents a straightforward chemical synthesis of nucleotides-sugars from thioimidoyl furanosides. Then, this work underlines also the biocatalytic behavior of nucleotidylyltransferases in order to synthesize non-natural furanosyl nucleotides. At last, activities of those new compounds were evaluated on the enzymes involved in the biosynthesis of the arabinogalactan of Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
PhD supervisor: Caroline Nugier-Chauvin and co-supervisor: Vincent Ferrières
Pauline Peltier-Pain is now a postdoctorate scientist at the university of Wisconsin (USA).