Polysaccharide research

This volume focuses on various aspects of fungal polysaccharide research that are currently being carried on throughout the world. Therefore, topics in this volume vary from the genetics of polysaccharide biosynthesis to host-pathogen interactions and from immunochemistry to the chemical and physical characterization of specific and interesting fungal polysaccharides that have industrial utility. 

Centre of ExceUence for Polysaccharide Research, Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, HumboldtstraBe 10, D-07743 Jena. E-mail thomas. heinze uni-jena.de... 

R558 H.-p. Li, Z.-j. Miao, H.-z. Li, B. Li and H.-h. Chen, Application of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Technology in the Polysaccharide Research , Anhui... 

Christensen, B.E., Indergaard, M. and Smidsr0d, O. (1990) Polysaccharide research in Trondheim. Carbohydrate Polymers 13, 239-255. 

Two conformational investigations - one a force-field study and the other a high field n.m.r. study - have been carried out on the a-idopyranuronic acid ring in connection with polysaccharide research. In the latter work dlsaccharlde derivatives having the acid linked to D-mannose were prepared, and sulohation was found to... 

Xanthan Gum. As a result of a project to transform agriculturally derived products into industrially usefiil products by microbial action, the Northern Regional Research Laboratories of the USDA showed that the bacterium TCanthomonas campestris - noduces a polysaccharide with industrially usefiil properties (77). Extensive research was carried out on this interesting polysaccharide in several industrial laboratories during the eady 1960s, culminating in commercial production in 1964. 

Standardization and Testing". The Center for Biologies Evaluation and Research has set guidelines for the vaccine which include standards for si2e of the individual polysaccharides and specifications for both purity (absence of protein and nucleic acid) and chemical and immunological identity. 

A seminal review by Stacey in 1947 on Aspects of Immunochemistry, and a survey a year later on Chemistry of Immunopolysaccharides, pointed the way to much of his future research. Taken in toto, his chemical work laid a firm basis for correlating the chemical and serological approaches to structure determinations of antigenic polysaccharides. 

In tandem with his studies of polysaccharides, Stacey had a research group investigating the chemistry of the unusual sugars found as components of carbohydrate macromolecules. In this context, derivatives of simple sugars, di- and trisaccharides, uronic acids, deoxy sugars, amino sugars, sugar sulfates, and phosphates were studied. 

AG type II is most abundant in the heartwood of the genus Larix and occurs as minor, water-soluble components in softwoods. Certain tree parts of western larch (I. occidentalis) were reported to contain up to 35% AG [378]. The polysaccharide is located in the lumen of the tracheids and ray cells. Consequently, it is not a cell-wall component and, by definition, not a true hemicellulose. However, it is commonly classified as such in the field of wood and pulping research. This motivated us to include the larch AG in the review. 

Figure 6 from Carbohydrate Research, vol 311, Sakurai MH, Kiyohara H, Matsumoto T, TsumurayaY, Hashimoto Y, Yamada H (1998) Characterization of antigenic epitopes in anti-ulcer pectic polysaccharides from Bupleurum falcatum L. using several carbohy-drases. p 219-p229, all with permission from Elsevier... 

Winzor and coworkers have employed measurements of the Donnan distribution of small ions in dialysis equilibrium [14] to reinforce earlier evidence of charge-screening effects in polysaccharide anions [164,165]. These researchers used the absorption optical system of a Beckman XL-1 ultracentrifuge to monitor the distribution of ions in polysaccharide solutions... 

Barbosa, M.I. Borsarelli, C.D. Mercadante, A. Z. (2005). Light Stability of Spray-Dried Bixin Encapsulated with Different Edible Polysaccharide Preparations. Food Research International,Vol. 38, No. 8-9, (October-November 2005), pp 989-994, ISSN 0963-9969. 

This paper begins with a brief description of pectin structure and an overview of the general mechanism of cell wall polysaccharide biosynthesis. This is followed by a summary of previous research on PGA-GalAT and a description of a facile method to synthesize UDP-[ Cj-galacturonic acid. Finally, the paper ends with a summary of our work on the identificadon, partial characterization, and initial solubilization of the homogalacturonan biosynthetic enzyme PGA-GalAT. 

Further research is directed to the determination of the fine-structure of the pectins and hemicelluloses isolated from soy meal, using chromatography and degradation with specific enzymes. With these results a model of the polysaccharides present in the cell wall of soy will be formulated. Furthermore, application directed experiments will be performed to obtain information about structure-function relationships. 

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