Streptococcal glucosyltransferases

The terms used here, GTase-S and GTase-I, will denote the streptococcal glucosyltransferases that synthesize water-soluble glucans and water-insoluble glu-... 

Another extensively studied family of sucrose glucosyltransferases includes the extracellular enzymes from Leuconostoc and Streptococcus spp. Hehre (164) first indentified dextransucrase (sucrose 1,6-a-o-glucan 6-a-D-glucosyltransfer-ase, EC 2.4.1.5) in a culture supernatant of Leuconostoc mesenteroides and initiated structure and mechanism characterization. The enzyme became of practical interest because of the widespread application of dextran as a plasma support during World War II (165). Leuconostoc dextransucrase is sucrose induced (166), unlike the streptococcal enzymes (167), although expression of the latter varies considerably with culture conditions (168, 169). 

Insoluble streptococcal dextran has been used for the affinity chromatographic purification of the extracellular D-glucosyltransferase from Streptococcus mutans 6715, and Lathyrus odoratus (sweet pea) lectins have been purified by affinity chromatography on crosslinked dextran (Sephadex ). ... 

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