Polysaccharide length affects mycobacterial cell shape and antibiotic susceptibility
Name
sciadv.aba4015.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
1.28 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
b34da0a326dfc74d7cfc7d0226717c59
Author(s)
Justen, Alexander M
Hodges, Heather L
Kim, Lili M
Sadecki, Patric W
Porfirio, Sara
Ultee, Eveline
Black, Ian
Chung, Grace S
Briegel, Ariane
Azadi, Parastoo
Date Issued
2020
Journal
Science Advances
Publisher
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Citation
Justen, Alexander M, Hodges, Heather L, Kim, Lili M, Sadecki, Patric W, Porfirio, Sara et al. 2020. "Polysaccharide length affects mycobacterial cell shape and antibiotic susceptibility." Science Advances, 6 (38).
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Copyright © 2020 The Authors, some rights reserved. Bacteria control the length of their polysaccharides, which can control cell viability, physiology, virulence, and immune evasion. Polysaccharide chain length affects immunomodulation, but its impact on bacterial physiology and antibiotic susceptibility was unclear. We probed the consequences of truncating the mycobacterial galactan, an essential linear polysaccharide of about 30 residues. Galactan covalently bridges cell envelope layers, with the outermost cell wall linkage point occurring at residue 12. Reducing galactan chain length by approximately half compromises fitness, alters cell morphology, and increases the potency of hydrophobic antibiotics. Systematic variation of the galactan chain length revealed that it determines periplasm size. Thus, glycan chain length can directly affect cellular physiology and antibiotic activity, and mycobacterial glycans, not proteins, regulate periplasm size.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Chemistry
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1126/SCIADV.ABA4015
