Isolation and characterization of an amino sugar-rich glycopeptide from the surface layer glycoprotein of Thermoanaerobacterium thermosaccharolyticum E207-71

Abstract

The characterization of surface layers (S-layers) [l] of different clostridia has indicated the presence of covalently linked carbohydrate residues [2,3]. The glycan content comprises up to 20% of the S-layer material and is considerably higher than that of aerobic bacilli [4,5]. There exist great variations, not only in the glycan structures of S-layers of different species of clostridia, but also in the glycans of different strains of the same species [3]. Thermoanaerobacterium thermosaccharolyticum (formerly Clostridium thermosaccharolyticum [6]) strain E207-71 is an anaerobic, thermophilic eubacterium that was isolated from extraction juices of an Austrian beet sugar factory [7]. The bacteria were completely covered by a squarely arranged S-layer lattice consisting of glycoprotein molecules with a centre-to-centre spacing of approximately 12.3 nm when they were continuously grown in the fermenter with an average dilution rate of D = 0.10 hh’ [S]. Each morphological unit consisted of four identical subunits. SDS-polyacrylamide gel-electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) of the purified S-layer glycoprotein showed distinct