Structural glycobiology in the age of electron cryo-microscopy

•Progress is being made on providing automated model building and validation tools for structural glycobiology.•Electron cryo-microscopy (cryo-EM) can now be routinely used for resolving protein glycosylation.•High-resolution cryo-EM structures show fewer pyranose high-energy conformations than X-ray ones.•Re-refinement with the latest methods can produce better structures of glycoproteins automatically.