Carbohydrate arrays: recent developments in fabrication and detection methods with applications.

Carbohydrate arrays can provide facile analyses of carbohydrate-binding proteins, antibodies in serum, and enzyme activities with minimal quantities of sugar samples. Recent developments in detection methods for carbohydrate arrays, especially surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and mass spectrometry, have enabled not only qualitative but in some cases quantitative data analysis in a variety of multivalent display formats. These advancements make diagnostic tools based on carbohydrate arrays more promising for infectious disease detection, cancer monitoring, and vaccine development.