Role of Lectins in Viral Infections and Antiviral Intervention
A special issue of Viruses (ISSN 1999-4915). This special issue belongs to the section "Viral Immunology, Vaccines, and Antivirals".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 May 2025 | Viewed by 1268
Special Issue Editor
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Lectins are glycan-binding proteins which play a variety of important roles in biology, including mediating specific biorecogniton and cell–cell communication and modulating signal transduction. The recognition of viral surface-specific glycans by some immune cell lectins often leads to immune activation, but such binding can also be exploited by some viruses to establish their attachment to the host cell to facilitate infection. Binding can also generate signals to modulate immune responses for viral immune evasion.
In general, glycans exhibit low intrinsic immunogenicity and often play a protective role in viruses by shielding their peptide epitopes from antibody recognition; in some cases, they also enhance virus binding to their receptors. Hence, viral glycosylation sites are mostly conserved across different variants, making them a highly attractive target for developing broad-spectrum, long-lasting antivirals.
In this Special Issue, we will collect both original and review articles concerning topics such as how lectin–glycan interactions enhance viral infectivity and how to target specific lectin–glycan interactions for the development of new antiviral and immunotherapeutical strategies.
Dr. Yuan Guo
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- lectin–glycan interaction
- membrane fusion
- immune evasion
- multivalency
- glycan conjugates
- lectin constructs
- antivirals
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