Bacterial Exopolysaccharides

Abstract

Bacterial extracellular polysaccharides are known as a cell-bound capsule, a sheath, or a slime, which is excreted into the environment. They play an important role in virulence of medical bacteria and plant-to-symbiont interaction and are used for serotyping of bacteria and production of vaccines. Some exopolysaccharides have commercial applications in industry, and claims of health benefits have been documented for an increasing number of them. Exopolysaccharides have diverse composition and structure, and some contain sugar and non-sugar components that are found in bacterial carbohydrates only. The present article provides an updated collection of the data on exopolysaccharides of various classes of gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria reported until the end of 2019. When known, biosynthesis pathways of exopolysaccharides are treated in a summary manner. References are made to structure and biosynthesis relatedness between exopolysaccharides of different bacterial taxa as well as between bacterial polysaccharides and mammalian glycosaminoglycans.