The respiratory pathogen Streptococcus pneumoniae uses the substrate binding protein SatA of the ABC transporter SatBC–MsmK to specifically bind the α-anomer of N-acetylneuraminic acid, the immediate ...

In structural biology, the analogy of a key (ligand) fitting a lock (protein) is commonly used to describe the binding process. In this context, we illustrate the evolutionary development of diverse locks that exhibit specific binding to a shared key: Neu5Ac. The intricate specificity of the interaction between various locks and the common key (Neu5Ac) is explored in our review.

Abstract. Expression of inhibitory Siglec receptors has been described on T cells of patients with viral infection and cancer. However, the exact function

AbstractTumor-associated macrophages (TAM) in the pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) tumor microenvironment (TME) exhibit immunosuppressive phenotypes and impaired phagocytic activity, facilitati...

Human H3N2 influenza viruses, introduced during the 1968 pandemic, have evolved to recognize human-type sialic acid-containing receptors (Neu5Acα2-6Gal) extended with at least three LacNAc (Galβ1-4Glc...

Recent advances in cancer immunotherapy have improved patient outcomes, even in advanced stages of the disease. However, the effectiveness of current cancer immunotherapies remains limited to a sma...

Immune therapies targeting the PD1 axis have transformed outcomes in cancer treatment by enhancing T cell-mediated immune responses. However, many tumors evade immune clearance through orthogonal esca...

The recently discovered sialidase AmGH181 from the human gut symbiont Akkermansia muciniphila is remarkably selective to the sialyl T-antigen, a glycan found on mucins and cancer cells. However, the m...

Pseudaminic acids (Pse) are a family of carbohydrates found within bacterial lipopolysaccharides, capsular polysaccharides and glycoproteins. Now, monoclonal antibodies have been developed that recogn...

Sialic acids derived from colonic mucin glycans are crucial nutrients for enteric bacterial pathogens like Salmonella. The uptake and utilization o...

Highly specific glycan labels remain scarce, limiting their use in many applications. Here, authors report recombinant glycan affinity binders based on sialidase mutants, which are enzymatically inact...

Biophysical and structural characterization of the TRAP transporter SBP SiaP in complex with a nanobody provides insights into an allosteric mechanism of inhibition.