Current understanding on biosynthesis of microbial polysaccharides
Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 7, 2026

Automated Modular High Throughput Exopolysaccharide Screening Platform Coupled with Highly Sensitive Carbohydrate Fingerprint Analysis
Published on: April 11, 2016
Hongjie Guo1, Wen Yi, Jing K Song
1Department of Biochemistry and Chemistry, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA.
Abstract:
The surfaces of almost all microbes are decorated with remarkable variations of polysaccharides such as O-antigen, capsular polysaccharides (CPS), and exopolysaccharides (EPS) in bacteria, lipoarabinomannans (LAM) in mycobacteria and lipophosphoglycan (LPG) in Leishmania. These polysaccharides play important roles in many biological processes, and they can function as the virulence determinants in the pathogens. The basic structures of these polysaccharides are known, but they show species-specificity or stage-specificity. For example, there are 186 O-serotypes and 80 capsular serotypes in E. coli. Despite the variation, the range of strategies used for the biosynthesis and assembly of these microbial polysaccharides is limited. Depending on the assembly and translocation mechanisms, O-antigen biosynthesis is subdivided into three pathways, of which the Wzy-dependent pathway is widely used not only in O-antigen, but also in CPS and EPS.
Related Concept Videos
Biosynthesis of Polysaccharides
Biosynthesis in Bacteria
Bioplastics
Production of Organic Acids
Chemistry of Carbohydrates
Oligosaccharide Assembly
Multiple sugar molecules that may or may...

