Metabolic Labeling of Bacterial Glycans

Although their impact in biology and cellular communication are now well established, in situ visualization of glycans has long remained elusive due to the lack of suitable and general imaging techniques. Twenty years ago, the bioorthogonal chemical reporter strategy based on chemoselective and biocompatible reactions has emerged to become the state-of-the-art labeling technology for studying glycans. In this chapter, after providing an update on recent developments in bioorthogonal chemistry, we review how this strategy can be implemented to the visualization and biochemical analysis of different glycans in the bacterial cell envelope.