Taxonomic group: fungi / Basidiomycota
(Phylum: Basidiomycota)
Organ / tissue: capsuleAssociated disease: infection due to Cryptococcus neoformans [ICD11:
XN3EH 
]
Publication DOI: 10.1002/ejoc.201100296Journal NLM ID: 9805750Publisher: Wiley-VCH
Correspondence: (no e-mail)
Institutions: Dipartimento di Chimica Organica e Industriale, CISI and ISTM-CNR, UniversitĂ degli Studi di Milano, Milano, Italy
Despite the enormous progress achieved by modern medicine, numerous diseases still have a profound impact on public health. Infectious diseases caused by a variety of microorganisms (viruses, fungi and parasites) and bacteria are a global major concern and, because of the emergence, for instance, of multidrug resistance, not only in developing countries. The development of preventative therapies, such as the rational design of novel and more efficient vaccines, might offer a solution to this state of affairs and other associated drawbacks. Vaccination is considered by the World Health Organization to be the most cost effective strategy for controlling infectious disease, because it should confer longâterm protective immunity in the population. A second consideration involves cancer. The outstanding progress achieved in the identification and structural characterization of tumour associated antigens has prompted their employment in tumour immunotherapy, on the basis of the observation that tumour cells possess specific antigens that can be recognized by an immune system appropriately conditioned to the task. Carbohydrates play key roles in many molecular recognition phenomena and they can affect any kind of interaction with the immune system. Saccharide based antigens (bacterial capsular polysaccharides or tumour associated carbohydrate antigens, for instance) have therefore been studied and employed in the formulation of vaccines. In recent years there has been increasing use of synthetic saccharide antigens for the formulation of vaccine candidates. These structures are indeed chemically well defined, devoid of biologic contaminants and, in principle, available in large amounts, relative to materials extracted from natural sources. In addition, synthetic saccharide antigens can also serve as haptens in protein conjugates, eliciting highly specific antibodies in animal models and humans. The great potential of synthetic saccharide antigens is attested to by the spectacular success of the Cuban vaccine against Haemophilus influenzae type b. Here we review the major advances in the development of synthetic carbohydrate based vaccines targeted against infectious diseases and cancer.
carbohydrates, antigens, glycoconjugates, vaccines, medicinal chemistry, cancer, immunochemistry, Immunotherapy, antitumor agents, Immunoadjuvants
Structure type: suggested polymer biological repeating unit
Location inside paper: fig. 32 (D), GXM
Trivial name: glucuronoxylomannan (GXM)
Compound class: CPS, EPS, O-polysaccharide, O-antigen, cell wall polysaccharide, polysaccharide, glucuronoxylomannan, capsule polysaccharide
Contained glycoepitopes: IEDB_114701,IEDB_115136,IEDB_115576,IEDB_130701,IEDB_140116,IEDB_140630,IEDB_144983,IEDB_145668,IEDB_152206,IEDB_164174,IEDB_167188,IEDB_174332,IEDB_423153,IEDB_76933,IEDB_983930,SB_197,SB_44,SB_67,SB_72
Comments, role: Microreview. Chemical repeating unit frame was shifted in annotation for compatibility with structures elucidated by MS [Eukaryotic Cell 2007, 6: 1464-1473].
Related record ID(s): 43601, 43602, 43603
NCBI Taxonomy refs (TaxIDs): 40410Reference(s) to other database(s): GTC:G53406VG
Show glycosyltransferases
There is only one chemically distinct structure: