Role of Glycoinformatics in Biomedical Research: A Review

Abstract

Glycans and their physiological receptors – lectins and glycoconjugates, participate in many crucial biological processes such as cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions, adhesion, signaling, differentiation, and development and therefore glycans may serve as identification molecules to the surrounding world. Advancements in the field of glycoinformatics have made it possible to analyze and synthesize glycans, thus helping in production of carbohydrate-based drugs. The results obtained with the use of bioinformatics in the field of study of carbohydrate moieties will be helpful in the treatment of various diseases. Therefore, the present review highlighted the various databases used in the glycoinformatics study and their implications in statistical analysis of glycan databases help to plan glycan synthesis experiments.