Beyond serology: saccharide profiling enables identification of antigenically similar and prompts re-evaluation of bacterial lipopolysaccharide evolution.

Leptospirosis is a zoonotic infectious disease of growing importance in both human and veterinary medicine. Gram-negative spirochetes of are traditionally classified into serovars based on their antigenic identity, which must be ascertained to design effective treatment procedures for humans and appropriate vaccination strategies in pets and livestock. Unfortunately, identifying serovars is challenging and currently requires access to a wide panel of reference strains, animal-derived antisera, or monoclonal antibodies.

Hygroscopic movements of cone scale of white fir are tuned by quantitative variation of the scale Bauplan.

Seed cones in gymnosperms consist of scales composed of dead cells at maturity. In , seed release occurs when entire seed-scale complexes, including sterile bracts that support the ovuliferous scales, are shed, causing the cone to disintegrate. This process is driven by the hygroscopic movements of the scales, which result from the reversible and uneven deformation of dead tissues in response to changes in water content.

Glucomannan engineering highlights roles of galactosyl modification in fine-tuning cellulose-glucomannan interaction in Arabidopsis cell walls.

Widely found in most plant lineages, β-mannans are structurally diverse polysaccharides that can bind to cellulose fibrils to form the complex polysaccharide architecture of the cell wall. How changes in polysaccharide structure influence its cell wall solubility or promote appropriate interaction with cellulose fibrils is poorly understood. Glucomannan backbones acquire variable patterns of galactosyl substitutions, depending on plant developmental stage and species.

Structural differences of cell walls in earlywood and latewood of and their contribution to biomass recalcitrance.

Scots pine ( L.) is an evergreen coniferous tree with wide distribution and good growth performance in a range of habitats. Therefore, wood from is produced in many managed forests and is frequently used in industry.

Silencing ScGUX2 reduces xylan glucuronidation and improves biomass saccharification in sugarcane.

There is an increasing need for renewable energy sources to replace part of our fossil fuel-based economy and reduce greenhouse gas emission. Sugarcane bagasse is a prominent feedstock to produce cellulosic bioethanol, but strategies are still needed to improve the cost-effective exploitation of this potential energy source. In model plants, it has been shown that GUX genes are involved in cell wall hemicellulose decoration, adding glucuronic acid substitutions on the xylan backbone.

Ectopic callose deposition into woody biomass modulates the nano-architecture of macrofibrils.

Plant biomass plays an increasingly important role in the circular bioeconomy, replacing non-renewable fossil resources. Genetic engineering of this lignocellulosic biomass could benefit biorefinery transformation chains by lowering economic and technological barriers to industrial processing. However, previous efforts have mostly targeted the major constituents of woody biomass: cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin.

Two types of GLR channels cooperate differently in light and dark growth of Arabidopsis seedlings.

Background: GLutamate Receptor-like (GLR) channels are multimeric, ionotropic, ligand-gated plant transmembrane receptors. They are homologous to mammalian glutamate receptors, iGLuRs, which are critical to neuronal function. GLRs have been reported several times to play a role in photomorphogenesis.

Eudicot primary cell wall glucomannan is related in synthesis, structure, and function to xyloglucan.

Hemicellulose polysaccharides influence assembly and properties of the plant primary cell wall (PCW), perhaps by interacting with cellulose to affect the deposition and bundling of cellulose fibrils. However, the functional differences between plant cell wall hemicelluloses such as glucomannan, xylan, and xyloglucan (XyG) remain unclear. As the most abundant hemicellulose, XyG is considered important in eudicot PCWs, but plants devoid of XyG show relatively mild phenotypes.

Golgi-localized putative S-adenosyl methionine transporters required for plant cell wall polysaccharide methylation.

Polysaccharide methylation, especially that of pectin, is a common and important feature of land plant cell walls. Polysaccharide methylation takes place in the Golgi apparatus and therefore relies on the import of S-adenosyl methionine (SAM) from the cytosol into the Golgi. However, so far, no Golgi SAM transporter has been identified in plants.

Upregulation of GLRs expression by light in Arabidopsis leaves.

Background: Glutamate receptor-like (GLR) channels are plant homologs of iGluRs, animal ionotropic glutamate receptors which participate in neurotransmission. GLRs mediate plant adaptive processes and photomorphogenesis. Despite their contribution to light-dependent processes, signaling mechanisms that modulate GLR response to light remain unknown.

Transformation of European Ash ( L.) Callus as a Starting Point for Understanding the Molecular Basis of Ash Dieback.

The population of European ash ( L.) is currently facing the risk of collapse, mainly due to ash dieback, a disease caused by a pathogenic fungus, . To facilitate studies into the molecular basis of ash dieback and design breeding strategies for a generation of resistant trees, it is necessary to develop tools enabling the study of gene function in .

Two conifer GUX clades are responsible for distinct glucuronic acid patterns on xylan.

Wood of coniferous trees (softwood), is a globally significant carbon sink and an important source of biomass. Despite that, little is known about the genetic basis of softwood cell wall biosynthesis. Branching of xylan, one of the main hemicelluloses in softwood secondary cell walls, with glucuronic acid (GlcA) is critical for biomass recalcitrance.

Structural Imaging of Native Cryo-Preserved Secondary Cell Walls Reveals the Presence of Macrofibrils and Their Formation Requires Normal Cellulose, Lignin and Xylan Biosynthesis.

The woody secondary cell walls of plants are the largest repository of renewable carbon biopolymers on the planet. These walls are made principally from cellulose and hemicelluloses and are impregnated with lignin. Despite their importance as the main load bearing structure for plant growth, as well as their industrial importance as both a material and energy source, the precise arrangement of these constituents within the cell wall is not yet fully understood.

Molecular architecture of softwood revealed by solid-state NMR.

Economically important softwood from conifers is mainly composed of the polysaccharides cellulose, galactoglucomannan and xylan, and the phenolic polymer, lignin. The interactions between these polymers lead to wood mechanical strength and must be overcome in biorefining. Here, we use C multidimensional solid-state NMR to analyse the polymer interactions in never-dried cell walls of the softwood, spruce.

An engineered GH1 β-glucosidase displays enhanced glucose tolerance and increased sugar release from lignocellulosic materials.

β-glucosidases play a critical role among the enzymes in enzymatic cocktails designed for plant biomass deconstruction. By catalysing the breakdown of β-1, 4-glycosidic linkages, β-glucosidases produce free fermentable glucose and alleviate the inhibition of other cellulases by cellobiose during saccharification. Despite this benefit, most characterised fungal β-glucosidases show weak activity at high glucose concentrations, limiting enzymatic hydrolysis of plant biomass in industrial settings.

The Patterned Structure of Galactoglucomannan Suggests It May Bind to Cellulose in Seed Mucilage.

The interaction between mannan polysaccharides and cellulose microfibrils contributes to cell wall properties in some vascular plants, but the molecular arrangement of mannan in the cell wall and the nature of the molecular bonding between mannan and cellulose remain unknown. Previous studies have shown that mannan is important in maintaining Arabidopsis () seed mucilage architecture, and that Cellulose Synthase-Like A2 (CSLA2) synthesizes a glucomannan backbone, which Mannan α-Galactosyl Transferase1 (MAGT1/GlycosylTransferase-Like6/Mucilage Related10) might decorate with single α-Gal branches. Here, we investigated the ratio and sequence of Man and Glc and the arrangement of Gal residues in Arabidopsis mucilage mannan using enzyme sequential digestion, carbohydrate gel electrophoresis, and mass spectrometry.

An even pattern of xylan substitution is critical for interaction with cellulose in plant cell walls.

Xylan and cellulose are abundant polysaccharides in vascular plants and essential for secondary cell wall strength. Acetate or glucuronic acid decorations are exclusively found on even-numbered residues in most of the glucuronoxylan polymer. It has been proposed that this even-specific positioning of the decorations might permit docking of xylan onto the hydrophilic face of a cellulose microfibril .

Removal of glucuronic acid from xylan is a strategy to improve the conversion of plant biomass to sugars for bioenergy.

Background: Plant lignocellulosic biomass can be a source of fermentable sugars for the production of second generation biofuels and biochemicals. The recalcitrance of this plant material is one of the major obstacles in its conversion into sugars. Biomass is primarily composed of secondary cell walls, which is made of cellulose, hemicelluloses and lignin.

Label-Free Analysis and Sorting of Microalgae and Cyanobacteria in Microdroplets by Intrinsic Chlorophyll Fluorescence for the Identification of Fast Growing Strains.

Microalgae and cyanobacteria are promising organisms for sustainable biofuel production, but several challenges remain to make this economically viable, including identification of optimized strains with high biomass productivity. Here we report on a novel methodology for the label-free screening and sorting of cyanobacteria and microalgae in a microdroplet platform. We show for the first time that chlorophyll fluorescence can be used to measure differences in biomass between populations of picoliter microdroplets containing different species of cyanobacteria, Synechocystis PCC 6803 and Synechococcus PCC 7002, which exhibit different growth dynamics in bulk culture.

Xylan decoration patterns and the plant secondary cell wall molecular architecture.

The molecular architecture of plant secondary cell walls is still not resolved. There are several proposed structures for cellulose fibrils, the main component of plant cell walls and the conformation of other molecules is even less well known. Glucuronic acid (GlcA) substitution of xylan (GUX) enzymes, in CAZy family glycosyl transferase (GT)8, decorate the xylan backbone with various specific patterns of GlcA.

Fusion of pyruvate decarboxylase and alcohol dehydrogenase increases ethanol production in Escherichia coli.

Ethanol is an important biofuel. Heterologous expression of Zymomonas mobilis pyruvate decarboxylase (Pdc) and alcohol dehydrogenase (AdhB) increases ethanol production in Escherichia coli. A fusion of PDC and ADH was generated and expressed in E.