High-affinity anti-glycan antibodies: challenges and strategies

High-affinity binding of antibodies provides for increased specificity and usually higher effector functions in vivo. This goal, well documented in cancer immunotherapy, is very relevant to vaccines as well, and has particularly significant application toward glycan antigens. The inability to elicit high-affinity antibodies has limited potential applications of glycan-based immunogens, giving rise to insufficient population coverage due to low titers and short duration of protection. That such vaccines have achieved widespread use in spite of these shortcomings highlights the surpassing importance of glycans as prophylactic immunological targets. New advances in the combination of synthetic chemistry, bioconjugation, and mechanistic immunology offer the possibility to vastly expand the number of potential molecular targets in cancer and infectious diseases by opening a wider world of carbohydrate structures to immunological recognition and high-affinity response.