Neisseria meningitidis specificity

Epimerization at C-2 of UDP-GlcNAc, leading to the UDP derivative of 2-acetamido-2-deoxy-D-mannose, was also observed115 118 the monosaccharide was identified as a constituent of several capsular polysaccharides from Streptococcus pneumonia119-122 and Neisseria meningitidis group A (Ref. 123), the teichuronic acid of Bacillus cereus,124 and the O-specific... 

So far, the acceptor specificity of nearly 20 eu- and prokaryotic sialyltransferases has been elucidated and 15 different cDNA clones of these enzymes have been obtained (Table 14 and references therein). This list demonstrates the rapid progress in this field and also includes the first cloning of mammalian polysialyltransferase (polysialyltransferase-1 from hamster ovary cells) [620]. The same group has recently published the molecular analysis of the biosynthetic pathway of the a-2,8-polysialic acid capsule by Neisseria meningitidis serogroup B [658]. 

Griffiths NJ, Bradley CJ, Heyderman RS, Virji M (2007) IFN-gamma amplifies NfkappaB-dependent Neisseria meningitidis invasion of epithelial cells via specific upregulation of CEA-related cell adhesion molecule 1. Cell Microbiol 9 2968-2983... 

Scrimin s group used GNPs functionalized with synthetic analogues of the repeating unit of the eapsular polysaccharide of type A Neisseria meningitidis to inhibit binding of the natural serotype A of this bacterium to its specific mouse polyclonal antibodies, as determined by ELISA assays. 

Jennings HJ, Roy R, Michon F (1985) Determinant specificities of the groups B and C polysaccharides of Neisseria meningitidis. J Immunol 134 2651-2657... 

A number of nonspecific phosphatases can act on NAN-9-PO4 to dephosphorylate it. However, it appears that in rat liver there is a specific sialic acid-9-phosphatase (Warren and Felsenfeld, 1962). A similar enzyme has been purified some 800-fold from human erythrocyte lysates (Jourdian et al., 1964) and has been shown to be highly specific for sialic acid 9-phosphate (both A/ -acetyl and A/ -glycolyl). This enzyme completes the synthesis of sialic acid in animal tissues. In bacteria, however, another pathway does exist and may be widespread. Extracts of Neisseria meningitidis synthesize sialic acid utilizing free N-acetyl-... 

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