Figure 8. Perturbing the bacterial glycocalyx to recruit immune responses.

A) Bacteria typically evade host immune detection by modifying surface glycans to block immune factors or mimic host antigens. Unnatural substrates bearing immune stimulants can exploit permissive metabolic pathways to become expressed on bacterial surfaces, ultimately recruiting macrophages to seek and destroy pathogens. B) Structures of representative immunogenic agents accessed from unnatural d-amino acids bearing 2.4-dinitrophenyl (DNP), which can be incorporated into the peptidoglycan and recruit anti-DNP antibodies.¹³³