Structure and conformation of acetan polysaccharide

Int J Biol Macromol. 1996 Oct;19(3):149-56. doi: 10.1016/0141-8130(96)01120-8.

Abstract

Acetan is an anionic bacterial polysaccharide. The chemical repeat unit consists of a cellobiose unit solubilised by attachment of a charged pentasaccharide sidechain to one of the glucose residues. The repeat unit contains two sites of acetylation. 1H and 13C NMR studies, coupled with both basic-methylation and mild-methylation studies, have shown that acetylation occurs at C6 on the (1,2)D-Man and the (1,34)D-Glc residues. A variety of techniques including NMR, optical rotation, circular dichroism and DSC show evidence for a thermoreversible conformational order (helix)-disorder (coil) transition for acetan in aqueous solution. The studies suggest that acetylation of the backbone does not prevent helix formation.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Acetylation
  • Binding Sites
  • Calorimetry, Differential Scanning
  • Carbohydrate Conformation
  • Carbohydrate Sequence
  • Circular Dichroism
  • Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy
  • Models, Molecular
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Optical Rotation
  • Polysaccharides, Bacterial / chemistry*
  • Polysaccharides, Bacterial / metabolism*

Substances

  • Polysaccharides, Bacterial
  • acetan