Synthetic Polysaccharide-Based Vaccines: Progress and Achievements

Abstract

The latest developments in automated polysaccharide synthesis, synthetic glycobiology, and glucan engineering make a great contribution to the characterization of less immunogenic glycan epitopes for efficient stimulation of immunity. These achievements in glycobiology accelerated the diverse molecular modification strategies for the construction of novel and synthetic polysaccharide-based vaccines. Next to the brief historical summary of vaccinology, in this chapter, both semi-synthetic and fully synthetic polysaccharide vaccine technologies and their advantages over conventional carbohydrate- based vaccines are presented. The enzymatic reactions, microreactor technologies, and especially the chemical principles of different strategies for the conjugation of polysaccharide and oligosaccharide chains with the most reliable vector proteins and efficient adjuvants are provided. Moreover, the current achievements of synthetic polysaccharide-based vaccine studies against several cancers, persistent parasitic, viral, and bacterial infections are reviewed. Furthermore, the prospects and opportunities of latest investigations including preclinical and phase trials on the development of next-generation vaccine-platforms exploiting the synthetic constructs of polysaccharide and oligosaccharide chains are summarized. © 2021 Scrivener Publishing LLC.