Brief Introduction of Glycan Microarrays

Glycans are defined as the compounds that consist of a large number of monosaccharides linked glycosidically. Glycans have diverse biological functions and it can be classified into two broad categories. One is the structural and modulatory properties of glycans and the other is the specific recognition of glycans by other molecules, most commonly, glycan-binding proteins (GBPs). The GBPs can be divided into two types, intrinsic GBPs and extrinsic GBPs. The intrinsic GBPs recognize glycans from the same organism and mediate cell-cell interactions or recognize extracellular molecules. The extrinsic GBPs which contain pathogenic microbial adhesins, agglutinins, or toxins, recognize glycans from different organisms and some also mediate symbiotic relationships.