Antibodies from Lampreys as Smart Anti-Glycan Reagents (SAGRs): Perspectives on Their Specificity, Structure, and Glyco-genomics.

The repertoire of glycans expressed by individual cells and tissues is enormous, and various estimates indicate that thousands of different glycans and "glycan determinants" are critical for functional recognition by glycan-binding proteins. Defining the steady-state expression and functional impacts of the human glycome will require a concerted worldwide effort, along with the development of new immunological, genetic, chemical, and biochemical technologies. Here, we describe the generation of smart anti-glycan reagents (SAGRs), recombinant antibodies that recognize novel glycan determinants. The antibodies are generated by the sea lamprey (