The molecules produced in this way would be called carbasugars or C-glycosides, thiosugars or thioglycosides, or iminosugars or glycosylamines.
When nitrogen is introduced, the glycomimetic may become positively charged at physiological pH, meaning that it may act as an enzyme inhibitor, either by Coulombic interaction with carboxylate amino acid side-chains in the enzyme active site, or by mimicking positive-charge build-up at the transition state of the reaction, or both.
Glycosylamines typically have a lower stability, being easily hydrolysed, which means that to exploit an exocyclic nitrogen substituent at C-1, further modification is necessary.
Substitution by CF2 rather than methylene has been explored [2] in efforts to address this and come up with better mimetics while still retaining the hydrolytic stability gained by the modification.
Tamiflu is an enzyme inhibitor that blocks the action of influenza virus neuraminidases (sialidases).