Leveraging Antiviral Lectins for Developing Glycan-Based Vaccines by Employing Standard and AI-Driven Approaches

In last three decades, astounding research data on antiviral lectins has been generated and their potential in playing a significant role in controlling emerging viruses like SARS-CoV-2 is being acknowledged. With recent research revealing the change in conformation of spike protein after fusion with the host cell, it is believed that vaccines developed against epitopes of pre-fusion conformation may not be as effective as was earlier anticipated. Besides, on the other hand, AI based tools can address the issue of struggling with rapidly-changing viruses by enabling precise glycan modeling, optimizing delivery methods, and improving host defence through glycan editing. This work focuses on the diverse physiological roles of lectins, with functional details of various antiviral lectins and the role various members of this class may play in strengthening the interaction with glycan based viral epitopes. Besides, AI-driven techniques discussed herein may provide significant mileage in facilitating the development of glycan-based vaccines that employ lectins with specificity against the viral epitopes. The recently characterized envelope glycans of SARS-CoV-2 are being discussed as a case in point.