Bacterial Cell Wall Peptidoglycans and Related Material

4 Bacterial Cell Wall Peptidoglycans and Related Material. Polysaccharides form important components of the large macromolecules whieh form the eell walls of bacteria. As the ehemistry of the polysaccharide components eannot be eonsidered in isolation, and eoverage of molecular interactions in the baeterial eell wall would require a large text in itself, the area will only be eovered only sketehily there are exeellent texts available.  

Gram-positive bacteria also have additional anionic polymers (secondary cell-wall polymers, SCWPs), which are covalently attached to the muramic acid residues of the peptidoglyean and attach cell-surface proteins. They can be of the teichoic acid type, linear copolymers of a sugar alcohol and phosphoric acid, or the teichuronic acid type, in which the anionic component is uronic acids.The commonest teichoic acids are based on 1,3-linked glycerol or 1,5-linked ribitol. 

An excellent set of practical protocols in use today is given by R. Stenitz, P.-E. Jansson and G. Widmalm, A Practical Guide to the Structural Analysis of Carbohydrate, http //www.casper.organ.su.se. 

http //www.chem.qmul.ac.uk/iupac/misc/psac.html Biochemical Nomenclature and Related Documents, Portland Press London, 2nd edn, 1992, pp. 177-179. 

See any standard text of protein structure, e.g. C. I. Branden and J. R. Tooze, Introduction to Protein Structure, Garland Publishing, New York, 1991, p. 8. 

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