Abstract: The core of personalized precision medicine is to conduct personalized characterization of complex biological samples. Glycans exist in large quantities on the surface of proteins in human tissues, cells, and various body fluids, which have important biological functions. The heterogeneity of glycans contains important characterization information and provides targets for early diagnosis and treatment of diseases. This paper introduces novel technologies of disease diagnosis and treatment based on terminal glycans, and illustrates that heterogeneous glycans can be used as novel targets for disease diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment. The achievements can provide reference for the realization of clinical personalized medicine.

Key words: glycans; glycoproteins; heterogeneous glycans; disease diagnosis and treatment