Identification of glycan functional epitopes is of paramounti mportance for rational design of glycoconjugate vaccines. We recently mapped the structural epitope of the capsular polysaccharide from type III Group B Streptococcus (GBSIII), am ajor cause of invasive disease in newborns, by using ad imer fragment (composed of two pentasaccharide repeating units) obtained by depolymerization complexed with aprotectivemAb. Althoughreported data hadsuggested ah ighly complex epitope contained in ah elical structure composed of more than four repeating units, we showed that such dimer conjugated to ac arrierp rotein with a proper glycosylationd egree elicited functional antibodies comparably to the full-length conjugated polysaccharide.Here, startingf rom the X-ray crystallographic structure of the polysaccharide fragment-mAb complex, we synthesized ah exasaccharide comprising exclusively the relevant positions involved in binding. Combining competitive surface plasmon resonance and saturation transfer differenceN MR spectroscopy as well as in-silicom odeling, we demonstrated that this synthetic glycan was recognized by the mAb similarly to the dimer.T he hexasaccharide conjugatedt oC RM 197 , am utant of diphtheria toxin, elicited ar obustf unctional immune response that was not inferior to the polysaccharide conjugate, indicating that it may sufficeasavaccine antigen. This is the first evidence of an X-ray crystallography-guided design of as ynthetic carbohydrate-basedc onjugatev accine. Supporting information and the ORCID identification number(s) for the author(s) of this articlecan be found under: https://doi.Figure 3. Immunogenicity of the synthetic hexasaccharide conjugate. A) Scheme of hexasaccharide conjugation to CRM 197 .B)Mouse immunization schedule. C) APSIII IgG Geometric Mean titers( GMTs, 95 %C I) aftert he second and third vaccineinjectionw ith CRM 197 -hexasaccharidea nd the CRM 197 -PSIII control. Dots indicateindividual mice.S tatistical analysiswas performed with Kruskal-Wallis and Dunn multiple comparisons test. D) Anti PSIII IgM Geometric Mean Titers after second immunization elicited by CRM 197 -hexasaccharide and the control CRM 197 -PSIII. E) OPKA titers measured after the third immunization.Animal studies were authorized by the Italian Ministry Of Health and were undertaken in accordance with the regulations of the Directive 2010/63/EU. Full experimental details can be found in the Supporting Information.