Using Natural Language Processing to Learn the Grammar of Glycans

While nucleic acids and proteins receive ample attention, progress on understanding the structural and functional roles of carbohydrates has lagged behind. Here, we develop a language model for glycans, SweetTalk, taking into account glycan connectivity and composition. We use this model to investigate motifs in glycan substructures, classify them according to their O-/N-linkage, and predict their immunogenicity with an accuracy of [~]92%, opening up the potential for rational glycoengineering.