Polysaccharides articles within Nature

Featured

• Article
  03 April 2024 | Open Access

  Molecular insights into capsular polysaccharide secretion

  An ensemble of cryo-electron microscopy structures of the KpsMT ABC transporter in complex with the KpsE co-polymerase and a glycolipid substrate reveal how capsular polysaccharides are recognized and translocated across bacterial cell membranes.

  • Jeremi Kuklewicz
  •  & Jochen Zimmer

• Article | 30 March 2022

  Structure, substrate recognition and initiation of hyaluronan synthase

  A cryo-electron microscopy analysis reveals how HAS selects its substrates, hydrolyses the first substrate to prime the synthesis reaction, opens a hyaluronan-conducting transmembrane channel, ensures alternating substrate polymerization and coordinates hyaluronan inside its transmembrane pore.

  • Finn P. Maloney
  • , Jeremi Kuklewicz
  •  & Jochen Zimmer

• Letter | 08 April 2010

  Transfer of carbohydrate-active enzymes from marine bacteria to Japanese gut microbiota

  One of the roles of the human gut microbiota is to break down nutrients using bacterial enzymes that are lacking from the human genome. It is now shown that the gut microbiota of Japanese, but not American, individuals contains porphyranases, enzymes that digest sulphated polysaccharides which are present in the marine environment only. These findings indicate that diet can select for gene content of the human microbiota.

  • Jan-Hendrik Hehemann
  • , Gaëlle Correc
  •  & Gurvan Michel