Carbohydrate-based vaccines: challenges and opportunities.

Advances in the synthesis of oligo- or polysaccharides and new technologies developed in glycobiology studies have opened a new avenue in carbohydrate vaccine design. In principle, various types of cell-surface epitopes, characteristic of the invading organism or related to aberrant growth of cells, can be applied to develop vaccines. Numerous promising carbohydrate-based vaccine candidates have been prepared in recent years. This article, primarily for general readers, briefly presents the recent advances involving carbohydrate-based vaccines, including antibacterial, antiparasite, anticancer and antivirus vaccines.