Implications of plant glycans in the development of innovative vaccines

Plant glycans play a central role in vaccinology: they can serve as adjuvants and/or delivery vehicles or backbones for the synthesis of conjugated vaccines. In addition, genetic engineering is leading to the development of platforms for the production of novel polysaccharides in plant cells, an approach with relevant implications for the design of new types of vaccines. This review contains an updated outlook on this topic and provides key perspectives including a discussion on how the molecular pharming field can be linked to the production of innovative glycan-based and conjugate vaccines.