Taxonomic group: bacteria / Actinobacteria
(Phylum: Actinobacteria)
Organ / tissue: cell wallAssociated disease: leprosy [ICD11:
1B20 
, ICD11:
XN5TS ];
infection due to Corynebacterium [ICD11:
XN3NT ]
NCBI PubMed ID: 6759115Publication DOI: 10.1111/j.1432-1033.1982.tb06973.xJournal NLM ID: 0107600Publisher: Oxford, UK: Blackwell Science Ltd. on behalf of the Federation of European Biochemical Societies
Institutions: Department of Microbiology and Genetics, Institute of Cell Pathology, University of Louvain Medical School, Brussels, Laboratoire de Biochimie Microbienne, Université de Lyon I, Vieurbanne
Leprosy-derived corynebacteria or LDC is a group of ‘diphtheroid’ bacteria isolated from leprosy patients. Their cell wall was previously shown to contain, in addition to a peptidoglycan of the meso-diaminopimelic type and to mycolic acids of the corynomycolic type, a polysaccharide fraction. The present work relates the preparation and analysis of the wall polysaccharides of three LDC strains and two reference organisms Mycobacterium smegmatis and Corynebacterium hoffmannii. These polymers were obtained by mild alkali hydrolysis of purified cell walls, and were purified to homogeneity by column chromatography on DEAE-cellulose and Sephadex G-75 columns. By this procedure, two fractions containing, respectively, neutral polysaccharides and polysaccharide-peptidoglycan complexes, were obtained. The former, which was composed of arabinose and galactose in M. smegmatis, contained, in addition, mannose in LDC cells, and mannose plus glucose in C. hoffmannii. The presence of arabinose, galactose and mannose in a constant ratio in the wall polysaccharide preparations of three LDC isolates suggests that arabinogalactomannan is the polysaccharide component of the envelope of this group of corynebacteria. A structural analysis was accomplished by methylation analysis and periodate oxidation. On the basis of the analytical data, a model for the primary structure of the polymer has been proposed, which is similar to that available for the arabinogalactan of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. According to the proposed model, the main chain of LDC polysaccharide is made of galactopyranose, galactofuranose and arabinofuranose. The latter is present in both the branching points and the lateral chains of the polymer. Mannose in the pyranose form, and arabinose in the furanose form, are located at the extremities. In conclusion, the inference that arabinogalactan is the wall polysaccharide of microorganisms belonging to genera Corynebacterium, Mycobacterium, Nocardia (CMN group) is not generally valid, since the corresponding polymers in some corynebacteria have additional monosaccharide components.
Structure type: polymer chemical repeating unit
Location inside paper: Fig. 4
Trivial name: arabinogalactomannan
Contained glycoepitopes: IEDB_130701,IEDB_133966,IEDB_136044,IEDB_136095,IEDB_136104,IEDB_136906,IEDB_137472,IEDB_137485,IEDB_141794,IEDB_143632,IEDB_144983,IEDB_144995,IEDB_151528,IEDB_152206,IEDB_164479,IEDB_190606,IEDB_983930,SB_136,SB_165,SB_166,SB_187,SB_195,SB_196,SB_44,SB_67,SB_7,SB_72,SB_88
Methods: GC-MS, TLC, acid hydrolysis, GC, paper chromatography, enzymatic digestion
Comments, role: proposed structure; amount of Araf may be distributed differently between side chain and parts of the backbone
NCBI Taxonomy refs (TaxIDs): 1716Reference(s) to other database(s): CCSD:
4433, CBank-STR:15335
Show glycosyltransferases
There is only one chemically distinct structure:
Found 
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