Pneumococcus Polysaccharides chemical structure

Of great interest is the possible determination of structures of pneumococcus polysaccharides by comparison with a known chemical structure such as dextran. The extent of the cross-precipitation reactions43 of dextran with various pneumococcus antisera indicates the closeness of the relationships between the structures of dextran and of the various pneumococcus polysaccharides. 

In 1967, Heidelberger, Stacey et al. reported the purification, some structural features, and the chemical modification of the capsular polysaccharide from Pneumococcus Type I. Difficulties of direct hydrolysis of the polysaccharide were overcome and it was possible to identify some of the fragments in the hy-drolyzate. At least six products resulted from nitrous acid deamination. Two were disaccharides, which were identified, and sequences of linked sugar units were proposed. As modification of the polysaccharide decreased the amounts of antibody precipitated by anti-pneumococcal Type I sera, the importance of the unmodified structural features in contributing to the specificity of the polysaccharide was indicated. 

By 1945, Stacey speculated about the possibility of a structural relationship between Pneumococcus capsular polysaccharides and those produced by other organisms. With Miss Schliichterer, he had examined the capsular polysaccharide of Rhizobium radicicolum. This polysaccharide gave a precipitin reaction in high dilution, not only with Type III Pneumococcus antiserum, but also mixed with antisera from other Pneumococcus types. The chemical evidence indicated that the polysaccharide resembled the specific polysaccharides of Types I and II Pneumococcus. A decade later, the acidic capsular polysaccharide from Azoto-bacter chroococcum, a soil organism, was studied. It, too, produced serological cross-reactions with certain pneumococcal specific antisera. Although the molecular structure of the polysaccharide was not established, adequate evidence was accumulated to show a structural relationship to Type III Pneumococcus-specific polysaccharide. This was sufficiently close to account for the Type III serological cross-relationship. 

Chemical determination of the structure of the capsular polysaccharide of RhiziAnum radicicolum (377) showed the presence of the cellobiuronic acid unit, thus also relating this polysaccharide immunologically to the specific polysaccharide of pneumococcus type III. The structural unit is thought to contain a second molecule of glucose. 

---