The s-layer glycome-adding to the sugar coat of bacteria
Abstract
The amazing repertoire of glycoconjugates present on bacterial cell surfaces includes lipopolysaccharides, capsular polysaccharides, lipooligosaccharides, exopolysaccharides, and glycoproteins. While the former are constituents of Gram-negative cells, we review here the cell surface S-layer glycoproteins of Gram-positive bacteria. S-layer glycoproteins have the unique feature of self-assembling into 2D lattices providing a display matrix for glycans with periodicity at the nanometer scale. Typically, bacterial S-layer glycans are O-glycosidically linked to serine, threonine, or tyrosine residues, and they rely on a much wider variety of constituents, glycosidic linkage types, and structures than their eukaryotic counterparts. As the S-layer glycome of several bacteria is unravelling, a picture of how S-layer glycoproteins are biosynthesized is evolving. X-ray crystallography experiments allowed first insights into the catalysis mechanism of selected enzymes. In the future, it will be exciting to fully exploit the S-layer glycome for glycoengineering purposes and to link it to the bacterial interactome.
Citation
Ristl , R , Steiner , K , Zarschler , K , Zayni , S , Messner , P & Schäffer , C 2011 , ' The s-layer glycome-adding to the sugar coat of bacteria ' , International Journal of Microbiology , vol. 2011 , 127870 . https://doi.org/10.1155/2011/127870
Publication
International Journal of Microbiology
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
1687-918XType
Journal article
Description
This work was supported by the Austrian Science Fund FWF, projects P19047-B12, P20605-B12, P21954-B20 (to C. Sch¨affer), and P20745-B11 (to P. Messner). Zarschler and Ristl were supported by the Hochschuljubil¨aumsstiftung der Stadt Wien, Projects H-2229-2007 (to K. Zarschler) and H-1897-2008 (to R. Ristl).Collections
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