Aerobacter aerogenes, polysaccharide

Among other polysaccharides studied were those elaborated by Neisseria per-flava (starch-type polysaccharide), Polytomella coeca (a starch richer in amy-lopectin than most natural starches), Pseudomonas morsprunorum (Wormald) (levan), Acetobacter acetigenum (cellulose), Aerobacter aerogenes (NCTC 8172) (Klebsiella Type 164), Bacillus megaterium. Bacterium pruni, and Bacterium prunicola (polyfructoses of the levan type). 

The most important development in methylation technique is due to Hakomori, who used as the base methylsulfinyl carbanion, formed by reaction of methyl sulfoxide with sodium hydride, and thus extended to carbohydrates the reaction developed by Corey and Chaykovsky/ In certain cases, completely methylated polysaccharide may be obtained in high yield by one treatment within an hour. This method was used by Sandford and Conrad in a re-examination of the polysaccharide from Aerobacter aerogenes, and their paper should be consulted for the excellent experimental details contained therein. These authors showed that this polysaccharide has a simple, repeating structure, and previous suggestions that it is complicated and highly branched arose from interpretation based on products of incomplete methylation. 

This technique has been useful for the examination of pneumococcal polysaccharides and the carbohydrate moieties of certain glycoproteins, by induction of enzymes produced by a strain of Aerobacter aerogenes. ... 

The discovery, shortly thereafter, of the enzyme pullulanase from the bacterium Aerobacter aerogenes helped considerably in further structural analysis of the polysaccharide. Hydrolysis of pullulan by diis enzyme showed that essentially no products containing (l->6)-ff-i>-giucosidic linkages were formed, the preponderant product being maltotriose. It was thus clear that the enzyme hydrolyzes (l->6)-a-D-glucosidic link-... 

Stoicheiometric reduction of the hexuronic acid residues of the capsular polysaccharide from Aerobacter aerogenes has been described (see also p. 468). ... 

Sandford, P. a., and H. E. Conrad The Structure of Aerobacter aerogenes A3 (SI) Polysaccharide. I. A reexamination Using Improved Procedures for Methylation Analysis. Biochem. 5, 1508 (1966). 

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