N-acetyl-d-quinovosamine (2-acetamido-2,6-dideoxy-d-glucose, QuiNAc) occurs in the polysaccharide structures of many Gram-negative bacteria. In the biosynthesis of QuiNAc-containing polysaccharides, UDP-QuiNAc is the hypothetical donor of the QuiNAc residue. Biosynthesis of UDP-QuiNAc has been proposed to occur by 4,6-dehydration of UDP-N-acetyl-d-glucosamine (UDP-GlcNAc) to UDP-2-acetamido-2,6...

The food borne pathogen Bacillus cereus produces uronic acid-containing glycans that are secreted in a shielding biofilm environment, and certain alkaliphilic Bacillus deposit uronate-glycan polymers in the cell wall when adapting to alkaline environments. The source of these acidic sugars is unknown and, in the present study, we describe the functional identification of an operon in Bacillus c...

Galactofuranose (Galf) residues are present in cell wall glycoconjugates of numerous pathogenic microbes. Uridine 5'-diphosphate (UDP) Galf, the biosynthetic precursor of Galf-containing glycoconjugates, is produced from UDP-galactopyranose (UDP-Galp) by the flavoenzyme UDP-galactopyranose mutase (UGM). The gene encoding UGM (glf) is essential for the viability of pathogens, including Mycobacte...

G protein-coupled P2Y receptors (P2Y-R) are activated by adenine and uracil nucleotides. The P2Y(14) receptor (P2Y(14)-R) is activated by at least four naturally occurring UDP sugars, with UDP-glucose (UDP-Glc) being the most potent agonist. With the goal of identifying a competitive antagonist for the P2Y(14)-R, UDP was examined for antagonist activity in COS-7 cells transiently expressing the...

Uridine diphosphate (UDP)-glucose 4-epimerase (EC 5.1.3.2) has been purified over 1000-fold from extracts of wheat germ by MnCl(2) treatment, (NH(4))(2)SO(4) fractionation, Sephadex column chromatography, and adsorption onto and elution from calcium phosphate gel. The enzyme has a pH optimum of 9.0. Km values are 0.1 mm for UDP-d-galactose and 0.2 mm for UDP-d-glucose. NAD is required for activ...

This document specifies a Management Information Base (MIB) module for the Lightweight User Datagram Protocol (UDP-Lite). It defines a set of new MIB objects to characterise the behaviour and performance of transport layer endpoints deploying UDP-Lite. UDP-Lite resembles UDP, but differs from the semantics of UDP by the addition of a single option. This adds the capability for variable-length d...

Xylose is rarely described as a component of bacterial glycans. UDP-xylose is the nucleotide-activated form necessary for incorporation of xylose into glycans and is synthesized by the decarboxylation of UDP-glucuronic acid (UDP-GlcA). Enzymes with UDP-GlcA decarboxylase activity include those that lead to the formation of UDP-xylose as the end product (Uxs type) and those synthesizing UDP-xylo...