Carbohydrate antigens as possible parasite vaccines: A case for the Leishmania glycolipid

Vaccination is one of the most cost-effective means of controlling and eradicating infectious disease but at present there is no vaccine against any human parasitic disease. Developments in gene cloning have focused attention on protein antigen vaccines and have opened the way for their large-scale production. There is, however, another class of non-clonable, biologically important molecules, the complex carbohydrates. In this review Emanuela Handman and her colleagues examine the structure and function of carbohydrate antigens of Leishmania, and their possible role in the search for a vaccine against this organism.