Nature Communications (May 2019)

Bacteroidetes use thousands of enzyme combinations to break down glycans

  • Pascal Lapébie,
  • Vincent Lombard,
  • Elodie Drula,
  • Nicolas Terrapon,
  • Bernard Henrissat

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-10068-5
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 10, no. 1
pp. 1 – 7

Abstract

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Bacteroidetes genomes contain polysaccharide utilization loci (PULs), each of which encodes enzymes for the breakdown of one particular glycan. By analyzing the enzyme composition of 13,537 PULs, the authors suggest that the natural glycan diversity is orders of magnitude lower than previously proposed.