Coronaviruses' sugar shields as vaccine candidates.

A successful global healthcare response relies on versatile vaccines and production of broadly virus-neutralizing antibodies by the immune system to protect us from emerging infectious diseases. The present 2019 severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic highlights the urgent need for development of anti-viral biodefense. Due to the genetic and proteomic diversities of viral pathogens, establishing versatile anti-viral vaccines or therapeutic agents is highly challenging. Carbohydrate antigens represent an important class of immunological targets for vaccine development and immunotherapy against microbial infections. In this mini review, some concepts and strategies for exploring the potential of immunogenic sugar moieties as CoV vaccine candidates are presented.