Antigenic carbohydrates

T. Iversen and D. R. Bundle, Antigenic determinants of Salmonella serogroups and D,. Synthesis of trisaccharide glycosides for use as artificial antigens, Carbohydr. Res., 103 (1982) 29-40. 

Our rationale was that if SARS-CoV expressed antigenic carbohydrate structures, then immunizing animals using the whole virus-based vaccines would have elicited specific antibodies for these structures. In addition, if SARS-CoV displayed a carbohydrate structure that mimics host cellular glycans, then vaccinated animals may develop antibodies with autoimmune reactivity to their corresponding cellular glycans. 

It is our belief that the ideal vaccines of the future will be constituted by synthetic peptide antigens, carbohydrates, and lipids. Because of the complexity of human T cells, it is also likely that several T-cell peptide epitopes would be required to create a vaccine that is able to induce a universal protective immune response. As vaccination of infants in developing countries is not a simple task, multivalent vaccines or cocktails of vaccines are highly recommended. 

A number of species of the Streptococci bacteria cause major human diseases. Important studies on the identification and classification of the strains and groups of Streptococci are due to Lancefield [43], Heidelberger [44] and collaborators. The classification system is based on the antigenic carbohydrates. A scheme for pathogenicity of the groups of Streptococci is recorded in Table 2. Such information is useful for identification of the organism causing the disease. 

Vasiliu D, Razi N, Zhang Y, Jacobsen N, AlUn K, Liu X, Hoffmann J, Bohorov O, BUxt O. Large-scale chemoenzymatic synthesis of blood group and mmor-associated poly-N-acetyllactos-amine antigens. Carbohydr. Res. 2006 341 1447-1457. 

It is thought that tumor-associated glycoproteins are often presented in clustered form. That is, an antigenic carbohydrate appendage is attached to a serine or threonine, and the resulting carbohydrate-amino acid motif is repeated in a series of residues. To more closely approximate a tumor cell surface, a carbohydrate construct was synthesized that presents Lewis y on three consecutive amino acids. 

Another member of the viridans streptococci, S. mutans, plays an important role in the formation of dental caries and binds tightly to tooth surfaces. The bacterium is capable of binding salivary components such as salivary agglutinin. It has been shown that S. mutans can bind to Lewis antigen carbohydrate epitopes containing fucose residues that are present on salivary agglutinin [48],... 

W. Kondo, N. Sato, and T. Ito, Chemical structure of the polysaccharide antigen of Eubacterium saburreum, strain 02, Carbohydr. Res., 70 (1979) 117-123 J. Hoffman, B. Lindberg, N. Skaug, and T. Hofstad, Structural studies of the Eubacterium saburreum strain 02 antigen, Carbohydr. Res., 84 (1980) 181-183. 

Analytical arrays typically use molecules that are able to capture and bind to proteins from a complex protein mixture. For instance, antibodies, antigens, carbohydrates or small molecules are spotted onto a derivatised surface. The typical approach used is that two protein populations from different biological states are compared - one set is labelled with a red fluorescent dye, the other labelled with a green fluorescent dye they are mixed, and then incubated with the chips. Each spot in the array is then analysed for the relative quantities of the two dyes. This information can lead to insights regarding structural and functional differences between... 

Subbiah R, et al. N, N, N-Trimethyl chitosan nanoparticles for controlled intranasal delivery of HBV surface antigen. Carbohydr Polym. 2012 89(4) 1289-97. 

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