Molecules 2015, 20, 9745-9766; doi:10.3390/molecules20069745 OPEN ACCESS molecules ISSN 1420-3049 www.mdpi.com/journal/molecules Review Molecular Interactions of β-(1→3)-Glucans with Their Receptors Laurent Legentil 1,2, Franck Paris 1,2, Caroline Ballet 1,2, Sophie Trouvelot 3, Xavier Daire 3, Vaclav Vetvicka 4,* and Vincent Ferrières 1,2,* 1 Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Rennes, CNRS, UMR 6226, 11 Allée de Beaulieu, CS 50837, 35708 Rennes Cedex 7, France; E-Mails:
[email protected] (L.L.);
[email protected] (F.P.);
[email protected] (C.B.) 2 Université européenne de Bretagne, F-35000 Rennes, France 3 INRA, UMR AgroSup/INRA/uB 1347 Agroécologie, Pôle Interactions Plantes-Microorganismes-ERL CNRS 6300, 21065 Dijon Cedex, France; E-Mails:
[email protected] (S.T.);
[email protected] (X.D.) 4 Department of Pathology, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40202, USA * Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mails:
[email protected] (V.V.);
[email protected] (V.F.); Tel.: +1-502-852-1612 (V.V.); +33-223-238-058 (V.F.). Academic Editors: Els Van Damme and Kristof De Schutter Received: 14 April 2015 / Accepted: 20 May 2015 / Published: 27 May 2015 Abstract: β-(1→3)-Glucans can be found as structural polysaccharides in cereals, in algae or as exo-polysaccharides secreted on the surfaces of mushrooms or fungi. Research has now established that β-(1→3)-glucans can trigger different immune responses and act as efficient immunostimulating agents.