Pathogen-host protein-carbohydrate interactions as the basis of important infections.

Microbe-host protein-carbohydrate interactions are most likely the essential first step to produce an infection, although this has been strictly proven only in a few cases. Improved glycotechnology will help identification of new carbohydrate receptors and this knowledge may be used to identify microbial carbohydrate-binding proteins by affinity proteomics approaches. In some cases such conserved proteins may prove to be successful vaccine components, in other cases, like influenza, saccharide analogues may be the only rational alternative. The prognosis may be, based on these improvements, that infection medicine will make considerable progress in the near future.