When Glycobiology and Immunology Work Together: The Immunoglycobiology of Fungal Immune Sensing

Abstract

Copyright: © 2011 Mora-Montes HM. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Carbohydrates are a universal feature present on the surface of all living cells: they may be covalently linked to either lipids, proteins or other sugars forming polysaccharides. Even some enveloped viruses of eukaryotes contain glycoproteins embedded in the viral membrane. So, when it comes to the recognition of pathogens by the immune system, it is easy to realize that the outermost, exposed molecules of pathogens, i.e., those based on sugar moieties, are among the first components to be sensed and to drive an immune response towards the antigen source.