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Related Experiment Videos

A unique structural pattern shared by T-cell-activating and abscess-regulating zwitterionic polysaccharides.

Yong-Hoon Choi1, Michael H Roehrl, Dennis L Kasper

  • 1Channing Laboratory, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA.

Biochemistry
|December 18, 2002
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

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Zwitterionic polysaccharides (ZPSs) from bacteria, unlike typical carbohydrates, activate T-cells. Structural analysis reveals common helical patterns and charged grooves in ZPSs, explaining their shared immunologic activity.

Area of Science:

  • Immunology
  • Structural Biology
  • Microbiology

Background:

  • Conventional understanding views carbohydrates as poor stimulators of T-cell immunity.
  • Zwitterionic polysaccharides (ZPSs) from bacteria exhibit potent T-cell stimulating and abscess-regulating activities.
  • Despite functional similarities, bacterial ZPSs display diverse chemical compositions and linkages.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To identify common structural features responsible for the unique immunologic activity of ZPSs.
  • To elucidate the three-dimensional structures of compositionally distinct ZPSs.
  • To test the hypothesis that specific conformational and charge patterns mediate T-cell activation.

Main Methods:

  • Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy

Related Experiment Videos

  • Molecular mechanics and dynamics calculations
  • Comparative structural analysis of ZPSs

    • Main Results:

    • The type 1 capsular polysaccharide (Sp1) from Streptococcus pneumoniae adopts a right-handed helical conformation.
    • Sp1 exhibits regularly spaced, zwitterionically charged grooves along its structure.
    • The structure of Sp1 shows significant similarity to previously studied PS A2 from Bacteroides fragilis.

    Conclusions:

    • Common structural motifs, specifically helical conformations with charged grooves, are key to T-cell activation by ZPSs.
    • These conserved structural patterns are likely recognized by specific receptors, conferring a shared T-cell activating property.
    • The findings challenge the dogma of poor immunogenicity for polysaccharides and highlight ZPSs as important immune modulators.