Chapter 5: Cracking the Glycome with the Sweet Tooth of Nature: Overview and Outlook of Lectin Microarray Technology

Lectin microarray technology is a rapid, sensitive and cost-efficient method for glycomic profiling, which has applications ranging from glycoprotein analysis to biomarker discovery. Recent advances continue to improve the sensitivity and analytical resolution of this technology. An emerging trend in glycomics is the integration of lectin microarray data with the biology technologies of other systems. This has led to a series of discoveries and indicates one of the future directions of lectin microarray technology. In this review, we give an overview of the principle of lectin microarrays and sketch the current state of this technology from both technical and application perspectives.