Structural Studies of Alginic acid, using a bacterial poly-α- L-guluronate lyase

Abstract

An extracellular poly-α- L-guluronate lyase from Klebsiella aerogenes degrades those blocks from alginate which contain both mannuronic and guluronic acid residues (poly-MG blocks) to a mixture of oligosaccharides. From an analysis of these products, it is concluded that poly-MG blocks do not have a strictly alternating sequence of the two uronic acid residues. Enzymic degradation of various samples of algal alginate to leave the poly-M blocks intact has shown that these blocks have a uniform chain-length, estimated at 24 residues.