Polysaccharide in Biological News

Lean and mean biomass-degrading fungus reveals capabilities for improved biofuel production

... something counterintuitive. Despite its reputation as an avid plant polysaccharide degrader, T. reesei, was found to have the smallest inventory of genes ... enzyme genes, which suggested a specific biological role: polysaccharide degradation. While plant tissues are not likely the main source of ...

New inhibitor has potential as cancer drug

... cancer cells overproduce an enzyme, heparanase, which splits the bodys own polysaccharide heparan sulfate into shorter fragments. The amount of enzyme is related ... splitting of heparan sulfate, they found that the metabolism of the polysaccharide was stimulated, but that the number of sulfate groups increased at the ...

New technique can fast-track better ionic liquids for biomass pre-treatments

... for biorefineries. Ideally, he and his colleagues would like to identify a single versatile ionic liquid that is capable of producing enriched polysaccharide and lignin output streams irrespective of fuel types. But there is much more basic research ahead. "Right now ionic liquids are a bench-top ...

MIT: New tissue scaffold regrows cartilage and bone

... for bone growth. They started with an existing method to produce a skin scaffold, made of collagen (from bovine tendon) and glycosaminoglycan, a long polysaccharide chain. To mimic the structure of bone, they developed a technique to mineralize the collagen scaffold by adding sources of calcium and phosphate. ...

Sugar on bacteria surface serves as base for a web of resistance

... that helps the microbes resist efforts to kill them, new research shows. Scientists have determined that the bacterial cell-surface sugar, a polysaccharide called Psl, is anchored on the surface of the bacterium as a helix, providing a structure that encourages cell-to-cell interaction. When multiple ...

Scientists discover how deadly fungus protects itself

... or axial, direction. The findings point to potential new targets for drug intervention and reveal a new area of investigation into basic polysaccharide biology. Polysaccharides are poorly understood, partly because of the difficulty of working with them. "Also, scientists have tended to view ...

Getting better with a little help from our 'micro' friends

... work would have to be mediated by molecules. In their recent work, Mazmanian and his colleagues have identified one such molecule, a sugar called polysaccharide A, or PSA, which is produced by the symbiotic gut bacterium Bacteroides fragilis. They have termed this molecule a "symbiosis factor," and predict ...

Outsmarting the smartie bug

... shows how the target of the vaccines, called the polysaccharide capsule, has evolved and allows the researchers to determine functions of the genes involved. The polysaccharide capsule forms a sugary coat around the bacterium ... a Smartie changing its colour. "The bug has a polysaccharide coat which can take any one of 90 different ...

Gut microbes' partnership helps body extract energy from food, store it as fat

... digestion of polysaccharides. Accumulation of such byproducts slows polysaccharide digestion. Samuel and Gordon speculated that M. smithii could improve the ... thetaioatomicron, it received increased amounts of formate, a product of polysaccharide fermentation that it covets and uses. "The presence M. smithii improved ...

A slight difference and significant similarities

... genetically modified Desiree potatoes, which have a very high level of the polysaccharide inulin, with five conventional varieties. Inulin is a sugar in the class ... There was no evidence of any new, unexpected substances. Inulin is a polysaccharide that is formed as a storage molecule in many plants such as chicory, ...

New polysaccharide may help combat multidrug resistance in cancer

... University of South Carolina noticed that small pieces, or oligomers, of a polysaccharide called hyaluronan were able to sensitize drug-resistant breast cancer cells to several different chemotherapeutic drugs. He believed that the polysaccharide oligomers were binding to a receptor for hyaluronan (called CD44) and ...

Edible coatings will be the packaging of the future

... and its applications are thus very limited. In order to set this deficiency off, mesquite gum was incorporated into the milk serum protein. This is a polysaccharide that grows in dry and semi-arid regions of the north of Mexico. The result is a compound film that is resistant and that maintains suitable ...

CO2 sensing proves critical for fungal pathogens to adapt to life in air and human hosts

... a transition between different morphological forms ("yeast" and "filamentous" forms) plays a major role, whereas for C. neoformans, synthesis of a polysaccharide capsule is key. In the bodies of mammals, the CO2 concentration is more than 150-fold higher (5%) than it is in atmospheric air (0.033%). ...