Abstract
Members of the bacterial genus Sphingomonas are known to produce highly viscous polysaccharides in solution. The exopolysaccharide PS-EDIV was produced by Sphingomonas pituitosa strain DSM 13101, purified using centrifugation, and precipitation and its structure was elucidated by 1D and 2D NMR techniques and chemical microderivatization combined with various mass spectrometric techniques. The following repeating unit of the polysaccharide could be identified:
In addition, the polysaccharide also contains acetyl and glyceryl groups whose exact positions were not determined. PS-EDIV is similar in structure to a known exopolysaccharide but differs in being the first bacterial polysaccharide in which two different glucuronic acids are combined. It caused a high viscosity of the culture broth after cultivation for 48 h, although a gelation was not observed.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Steffen Harling of the Institute for Technical Chemistry, TU Braunschweig, for performing gel permeation chromatography. We are also grateful to Professor Werner Lubitz of the Department of Medicinal Chemistry, University of Vienna, Austria, for providing us with the organism S. pituitosa and additional information.
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Schultheis, E., Dreger, M.A., Nimtz, M. et al. Structural characterization of the exopolysaccharide PS-EDIV from Sphingomonas pituitosa strain DSM 13101. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 78, 1017–1024 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-008-1383-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-008-1383-8