Stacey Bacterial Polysaccharides

Enzymatic Production of Bacterial Polysaccharides, M. Stacey, Nature. 149 (1942) 639. 

Compounds of this type were first classified by Meyer (262, 263) who, however, included only hexosamine-containing compounds. Stacey (408, 409) proposed a classification which included many additional complex carbohydrates and some of the bacterial polysaccharides that are discussed later. 

In the late 1940s Stacey, with the able and enthusiastic assistance of Paul Kent, examined polysaccharide material from Mycobacterium tuberculosis human strain. From heat-killed cells, two stable, serologically specific polysaccharide fractions and a degraded bacterial glycogen were isolated and examined. 

Polysaccharides. Part XXXIX. The Constitution of Certain Levans Formed by Bacterial Action, R. R. Lyne, S. Peat, and M. Stacey, J. Chem. Soc.. (1940) 237 -241. 

With all this war work progressing, a small group was still able to carry on with the normal carbohydrate research. Papers on starch, D-glucuronolactone, bacterial levans (with Stacey), and the polysaccharide associated with beta-amylase, all appeared in the Journals. 

Stacey has written an excellent review on the subject of mucopolysaccharides, which he classified on the basis of their containing both hexosamine and hexuronic acid residues, one or the other of these sugar derivatives, or neither. Hyaluronic acid, chondroitinsulfuric acid. Type I pneumococcal polysaccharides, and heparin are members of the first class. Types II, III, and VIII pneumococcal polysaccharides are examples containing hexuronic acid but no hexosamine. Chi tin and Types IV and XIV pneiuno-coccal polysaccharides contain hexosamine but no hexuronic acid and bacterial dextrans, mold polysaccharides, and levans contain neither hexosamine nor hexuronic acid. 

---