The present invention relates to a chemically modified mutant protein including a cysteine residue substituted for a residue other than cysteine n a precursor protein, the substituted cysteine residue being subsequently modified by reacting the cysteine residue with a glycosylated thiosulfonate. Also a method of producing the chemically modified mutant protein is provided. The present invention also relates to a glycosylated methanethiosulfonate. Another aspect of the present invention is a method of modifying the functional characteristics of a protein including providing a protein and reacting the protein with a glycosylated methanethiosulfonate reagent under conditions effective to produce a glycoprotein with altered functional characteristics as compared to the protein. In addition, the present invention relates to methods of determining the structure-function relationships of chemically modified mutant proteins. The present invention also relates to synthetic methods for producing thio-glycoses, the thio-glycoses so produced, and to methods for producing glycodendrimer reagents.