Nature Communications (Apr 2017)

Metabolic labelling of the carbohydrate core in bacterial peptidoglycan and its applications

  • Hai Liang,
  • Kristen E. DeMeester,
  • Ching-Wen Hou,
  • Michelle A. Parent,
  • Jeffrey L. Caplan,
  • Catherine L. Grimes

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms15015
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 8, no. 1
pp. 1 – 11

Abstract

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N-acetyl-muramic acid (NAM) is a core component of the bacterial peptidoglycan (PG) cell wall, and is recognised by the innate immune system. Here the authors engineer Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria to incorporate a modified NAM into the backbone of PG, which can be labelled with click chemistry for imaging and tracking.