Secondary cell wall polymer

Ilk, N. Kosma, P. Puchberger, M. Egelseer, E. M. Mayer, H. F. Sleytr, U. B. Sara, M. Structural and functional analyses of the secondary cell wall polymer of Bacillus sphaericus CCM 2177 that serves as an S-layer-specific anchor. J. Bacterial. 1999,181,7643-7646. 

The cell walls of Gram-positive bacteria, including the pathogens S. aureus. Bacillus anthracis. Streptococcus pneumoniae, and Enterococcus faecalis contain thick layers of peptidoglycan. The peptidoglycan layers serve as both a protective barrier and as a scaffold for the attachment of secondary cell wall polymers and surface proteins. Surface proteins include hydrolytic enzymes involved in peptidoglycan turnover, as well as structures such as pili... 

One of the common surface structures of archea and bacteria are monomolecular crystalline arrays of protein subunits, called S-layers [106-109]. They constitute the outermost component of tlie cell envelope of these procaryotic organisms. S-layer subunits can be aligned in lattices with oblique, square, or hexagonal symmetry. Since S-layers are monomolecular assemblies of identical protein subunits, they exhibit pores of identical size and morphology. A group of nonclassical cell wall polymers, called secondary cell wall polymers (SCWPs), are attached noncova-lently, presumably by a lectin-type interaction, to the S-layer proteins. 

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. 

Sara, M., Dekitsch, C., Mayer, H.F., Egelseer, E.M., Sleytr, U.B., 1998. Influence of the secondary cell wall polymer on the reassembly, recrystallization, and stability properties of the S-layer protein from Bacillus stearothermophilus PV72/p2. J. Bacteriol. 180, 4146-4153. 

Schaffer C, Messner P (2005) The structure of secondary cell wall polymers how Grampositive bacteria stick their cell walls together. Microbiology 151 643-651... 

The S-layer protein SbsB reassembles into flat mono- and double-layer sheets with a size of 1-3 p.m [80]. The addition of the purified high molecular weight secondary cell wall polymer which functions as an anchoring structure for the S-layer protein in the bacterial cell wall [81] inhibited the in vitro self-assembly of the isolated S-layer protein and kept it in the water-soluble state. Interestingly, the soluble monomeric and/or oligomeric S-layer protein recrystallized into closed monolayers on poly-L-lysine coated EM-grids to which the S-... 

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