Monosaccharides polysaccharide components

Sections Disaccharides are carbohydrates in which two monosaccharides are 25.14-25.15 joined by a glycoside bond. Polysaccharides have many monosaccharide units connected through glycosidic linkages. Complete hydrolysis of disaccharides and polysaccharides cleaves the glycoside bonds, yielding the free monosaccharide components. 

FIGURE 7.21 Amylose and amylopectin are the two forms of starch. Note that the linear linkages are o (1 4), but the branches in amylopectin are o (1 6). Branches in polysaccharides can involve any of the hydroxyl groups on the monosaccharide components. Amylopectin is a highly branched structure, with branches occurring every 12 to 30 residues. 

A great diversity of monosaccharide structures is a characteristic feature of bacterial polysaccharide chains, especially of O-specific chains of lipopolysaccharides from Gram-negative bacteria. Several surveys of monosaccharide components of bacterial polysaccharides have been published.95 98... 

Other monosaccharide components (of bacterial polysaccharides) that are structurally related to D-ribose include D-riburonic acid,232 identified in the exocellular polysaccharide produced by a strain of Rhizobium meliloti, and D-arabinose, frequently present as the furanose, in polysaccharides of mycobacterial cell-wall.233,234 L-Xylose235,236 should probably be included in the group, as it may be derived from D-arabinose through epimerization at C-4. Biosynthesis of these monosaccharides was not investigated. 

In this group of monosaccharide components of bacterial polysaccharides, a primary glycosyl nucleotide is ADP-D-g/ycero-D-manno-heptose (9), identified in extracts of a mutant strain of Shigella sonnei.231... 

Two of the most frequent monosaccharide components of bacterial polymers belonging to this group have been the subjects of articles in this Series. They are 3-deoxy-D-manno-2-octulosonic acid,247 a normal constituent of the core region of bacterial lipopolysaccharides that is also present in some other polymers, and N-acetylneuraminic acid,248 found in several capsular polysaccharides. Enolpyruvate phosphate serves as the precursor of the C-l-C-3 fragment of the monosaccharides, with D-arabinose 5-phosphate or 2-acetamido-2-deoxy-D-mannose 6-phosphate being an acceptor for transfer of the three-carbon unit. Characteristic, activated forms of these monosaccharides are the CMP derivatives. 

Table IV, which briefly summarizes the material described in previous sub-sections, shows the total of the different monosaccharide components identified in bacterial polysaccharides, and our present knowledge about their activated forms. It may be seen that identification of the activated forms has been achieved for only approximately half of the monosaccharides known to be involved. The most striking gap in the information available is the lack of data about the activated forms of D-ribose-derived monosaccharides and of most of the D-fructose-derived aldoses having configurations other than gluco, galacto, and manno.

The list of the most common monosaccharide components of bacterial polysaccharides, shown in Table VI, includes the sugars that were found at the nonreducing end of nine or more different disaccharide fragments of the polymers. The right-hand column of the Table, which shows the total number of such fragments, gives an estimate of the number of different glycosyltransferases that use the activated form of the monosaccharides as... 

Abbreviations for biosynthetic types are composed from abbreviations of nucleoside residues of activated forms of the monosaccharide components. 6 See footnote a to Table VI lin. and br. mean linear and branched polysaccharides. c Including other bacterial amphi-philes of Gram-negative, outer membranes. d Including amphiphiles of Gram-positive cell-membranes. 

N. K. Kochetkov, Unusual monosaccharides Components of O-antigenic polysaccharides of microorganisms, Russian Chem. Rev., 65 (1996) 735-768. 

Extracellular polysaccharides are produced by some species of the genus Rhodella, but their composition seems to be even more complex than that of Porphyridium. In addition to monosaccharide components just mentioned, rhamnose and 3-O-methyl-xylose were found in the mucilage of R. maculata.723 724 An extremely complex proteoglycan was shown to be produced by Rhodella grisea.725... 

Glycosaminoglycans are solubilized from stromal or other tissues by extracting the source tissue with dilute acid or alkali. Hyaluronan is electrostatically bound to specific proteins called hyaladherins, which possess a structural domain of -100 amino acids termed a link module. Other glycosaminoglycans are O-linked to serine and threonine residues of polypeptides and these bonds hydrolyze before the rest of the polysaccharide. The protein moiety precipitates when trichloroacetic acid or ammonium sulfate is added to the cooled mixture. The composition of the GAGs (including hyaluronan) was identified by chromatographic separation of the purified polysaccharides, followed by their hydrolysis in boiling 1.0 M HC1 for 2 1 h and identification of the individual monosaccharide components. 

A further investigation was carried out on the EPSs from oleander strain grown on the King s B medium [127], As proved by preliminary results, P. savastanoi in these conditions produces a complex mixture of polysaccharides that were partially purified by gel-filtration chromatography. The main fractions were characterised by chemical and spectroscopic methods. The monosaccharide components were fucose, galactose, N-acetyl-2-deoxy-2-aminogalactose and N-acetyl-2-deoxy-2-... 

When many monosaccharides are linked together, the result is a polysaccharide. Polysaccharides that occur in organisms are usually composed of a very few types of monosaccharide components. A polymer that consists of only one type of monosaccharide is a homopolysaccharide a polymer that consists of more than one type of monosaccharide is a heteropolysaccharide. Glucose is the most common monomer. When there is more than one type of monomer, frequently only two types of molecules occur in a repeating sequence. A complete characterization of a polysaccharide includes specification of which monomers are present and, if necessary, the sequence of monomers. It also requires that the type... 

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