In Escherichia coli, L-fucose is dissimilated via an inducible pathway mediated by L-fucose permease, L-fucose isomerase, L-fucose kinase, and L-fuculose 1-phosphate aldolase. The last enzyme cleaves the six-carbon substrate into dihydroxyacetone phosphate and L-lactaldehyde. Aerobically, lactaldehyde is oxidized to L-lactate by a nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD)-linked dehydrogenase. An...

BACKGROUND Clostridium phytofermentans, an anaerobic soil bacterium, can directly convert plant biomass into biofuels. The genome of C. phytofermentans contains three loci with genes encoding shell proteins of bacterial microcompartments (BMC), organelles composed entirely of proteins. METHODOLOGY AND PRINCIPAL FINDINGS One of the BMC loci has homology to a BMC-encoding locus implicated in th...

Leukocyte adhesion deficiency/congenital disorder of glycosylation IIc (LAD II/CDG IIc) is a genetic disease characterized by a decreased expression of fucose in glycoconjugates, resulting in leukocyte adhesion deficiency and severe morphological and neurological abnormalities. The biochemical defect is a reduced transport of guanosine diphosphate-L-fucose (GDP-L-fucose) from cytosol into the G...

Fucosylated sugar chains decorate cell surface glycoproteins including signaling receptors, where the sugars can have critical functions. The best-known example is that of selectin ligands, which mediate leukocyte rolling on endothelial cells (Ley, 2001). The discovery that Notch signaling involves fucose-based glycans (Moloney et al., 2000) heralds another exciting area in glycobiology, dubbed...

Pork liver has previously been reported to contain a soluble enzymatic pathway which converts L-fucose to 2-keto-3deoxy-L-fuconate and D-arabinose to 2-keto-3-deoxy-Darabonate. We now report the isolation from pork liver of a soluble NAD+-dependent dehydrogenase which acts on both 2-keto-3-deoxy-L-fuconate and 2-keto-3-deoxy-D-arabonate. This enzyme has been purified to homogeneity by a five-st...

In Aerobacter aerogenes, the mutational event permitting the utilization of d-arabinose as a source of carbon and energy is a regulatory mutation resulting in the constitutive synthesis of certain enzymes of the l-fucose catabolic pathway. l-Fucose isomerase catalyzes the isomerization of d-arabinose to d-ribulose. This enzyme was purified to homogeneity as indicated by a single band in disc-ge...

The efficiency and reliability of radioactive fucose as a specific label for newly synthesized glycoproteins were investigated. Young adult male rabbits were injected intravitreally with [3H]-fucose, [3H]-galactose. [3H]-mannose, N-acetyl-[3H]-glucosamine or N-acetyl-[3H]-mannosamine, and killed 40 h after injection. In another series of experiments rabbits were injected with either [3H]-fucose...

The incorporation of radioisotopically labeled fucose into a prominent fucosylated component, i.e., fucose-labeled amino acid fucoside 4c (FL4c), of human embryonic lung cells is markedly decreased in cell lines derived from human tumors. In the current study, we have extended the above observations by examining more closely related normal and transformed human cells, e.g., Wi38 cells and SV40-...

BACKGROUND Tumor markers, designated as a broad group of substances produced by malignancies, could be in the form of biochemical substances, immunological substances, cell surface changes and genetic alterations. Cancer, a disorder of cellular behavior is characterized by alteration of serum glycoproteins. L-fucose, a hexose, which is the terminal sugar in most of the plasma glycoproteins, may...

The alpha1,6-fucosyl residue (core fucose) of glycoproteins is widely distributed in mammalian tissues and is altered under pathological conditions. A probe that specifically detects core fucose is important for understanding the role of this oligosaccharide structure. Aleuria aurantia lectin (AAL) and Lens culimaris agglutinin-A (LCA) have been often used as carbohydrate probes for core fucose...