Immune-Engineering Biomaterials - a Focus on Galectin Targeting

The immune system is a complex network that plays a pivotal role in health and is responsible for responding against any challenge that alters the body's homeostasis. Modulating immune response is a widely explored therapeutic strategy for managing the healthy outcome of many diseases. In this sense, discovering new targets in the immune system is of high interest. Among all the biological entities involved in the immune response, galectins, a family of glycan-binding proteins, have been described as key players in immune cell homeostasis and modulation. More importantly, only some members of the galectin family have shown to be crucial in inflammation resolution while others perpetuate the immune response in a pathological context. Being expressed in most major diseases, their potential as targets for new therapies seems promising. Most of the galectin family members' ubiquitous expression points out the need for targeted treatments to secure effectiveness. Engineered biomaterials are emerging as a promising method to improve galectin-targeted strategies' therapeutic performance. In this review, we provide an overview of the role of galectins in health and disease, and their potential as therapeutic targets, as well as the state of the art of galectin-targeted biomaterials.