Anti-glycan antibodies: roles in human disease

Abstract

Carbohydrate-binding antibodies play diverse and critical roles in human health. Endogenous carbohydrate-binding antibodies that recognize bacterial, fungal, and other microbial carbohydrates prevent systemic infections and help maintain microbiome homeostasis. Anti-glycan antibodies can have both beneficial and detrimental effects. For example, alloantibodies to ABO blood group carbohydrates can help reduce the spread of some infectious diseases, but they also impose limitations for blood transfusions. Antibodies that recognize self-glycans can contribute to autoimmune diseases, such as Guillain-Barre syndrome. In addition to endogenous antibodies that arise through natural processes, a variety of vaccines induce anti-glycan antibodies as a primary mechanism of protection. Some examples of approved carbohydrate-based vaccines that have had a major impact on human health are against pneumococcus, Haemophilus influeanza type b, and Neisseria meningitidis. Monoclonal antibodies specifically targeting pathogen associated or tumor associated carbohydrate antigens (TACAs) are used clinically for both diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. This review aims to highlight some of the well-studied and critically important applications of anti-carbohydrate antibodies.

Applying transcriptomics to study glycosylation at the cell type level

“…Glycan recognition by receptors (e.g., antibodies ( Temme et al., 2021 ), selectins ( McEver, 2015 ), lectins ( Bojar et al., 2021 ), and carbohydrate-binding modules ( Lombard et al., 2014 )) mediates selective recognition of cells. The recognized features are generally well-defined with respect to terminal glycan structures as presented in Figure 4 D, whereas it appears that recognition for at least some glycan-binding proteins involve more complex features ( Cohen and Varki, 2014 ).…”

Acute and chronic neurological disorders in COVID-19: potential mechanisms of disease

“…In this latter study, there was no direct correlation with antibody titre and clinical features of GBS. Anti-glycan antibodies are also observed in other viral and bacterial infections (HIV, EBV, Neisseria meningitidis 31 , 165 ) as well as autoimmune diseases such as Crohn’s disease, 166 and thus may merely be a marker of systemic inflammation. Of relevance, there were no reported cases of GBS in the three major COVID-19 vaccine trials.…”

Glycans as a key factor in self and nonself discrimination: impact on the breach of immune tolerance

“…In recent years, the increasing interest of targeting specific glycans in pathogens has been promoting the development of glycan-based vaccines. For example, there are currently 7 phase 1 or phase 2 clinical trials ongoing testing the efficacy of monoclonal antibodies against specific glycan structures found in the HIV virus envelope [90][91][92][93], which pave the way for exploiting glycanbased vaccines for other emergent virus infections, including SARS-CoV-2 infection.…”