Abstract
Genome sequence analysis of Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae has revealed a cluster of 12 ORFs that are closely related to the gum gene cluster of Xanthomonas campestris pv. campestris. The gum gene cluster of X. oryzae encodes proteins involved in xanthan production; however, there is little experimental evidence supporting this. In this study, biochemical analyses of xanthan produced by a defined set of X. oryzae gum mutant strains allowed us to preliminarily assign functions to most of the gum gene products: biosynthesis of the pentasaccharide repeating unit for GumD, GumM, GumH, GumK, and GumI, xanthan polymerization and transport for GumB, GumC, GumE, and GumJ, and modification of the pentasaccharide repeating unit for GumF, GumG, and GumL. In addition, we found that the exopolysaccharides are essential but not specific for the virulence of X. oryzae.
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Acknowledgements
We acknowledge the skillful technical assistance with the HPAEC-PAD analyses of xanthan that was provided by Dong-Joong Lim at the Carbohydrate Bioproduct Research Center of Sejong University, Seoul, Korea. The LabGene Inc. is supported by a grant from the Gangwon Technopark. This research was supported in part by the NIAB 07-4-21-22-1 (BioGreen21 20070501034003 and 200704010340210080600 from RDA) and by the Sangji University Research Fund 2007.
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Sang-Yoon Kim and Jeong-Gu Kim contributed equally to this work.
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Supplementary Table 1
The plasmids constructed for this study (DOC 39 kb)
Supplementary Table 2
The primers used for this study. Upper case letters refer to the sequences of bacterial genes (DOC 56 kb)
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Kim, SY., Kim, JG., Lee, BM. et al. Mutational analysis of the gum gene cluster required for xanthan biosynthesis in Xanthomonas oryzae pv oryzae . Biotechnol Lett 31, 265–270 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10529-008-9858-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10529-008-9858-3