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Lookup NU author(s): Professor William WillatsORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
© The Author(s) 2017. Brown algae are photosynthetic multicellular marine organisms. They belong to the phylum of Stramenopiles, which are not closely related to land plants and green algae. Brown algae share common evolutionary features with other photosynthetic and multicellular organisms, including a carbohydrate-rich cell-wall. Brown algal cell walls are composed predominantly of the polyanionic polysaccharides alginates and fucose-containing sulfated polysaccharides. These polymers are prevalent over neutral and crystalline components, which are believed to be mostly, if not exclusively, cellulose. In an attempt to better understand brown algal cell walls, we performed an extensive glycan array analysis of a wide range of brown algal species. Here we provide the first demonstration that mixed-linkage (1 → 3), (1 → 4)-β-d-glucan (MLG) is common in brown algal cell walls. Ultra-Performance Liquid Chromatography analyses indicate that MLG in brown algae solely consists of trisaccharide units of contiguous (1 → 4)-β-linked glucose residues joined by (1 → 3)-β-linkages. This regular conformation may allow long stretches of the molecule to align and to form well-structured microfibrils. At the tissue level, immunofluorescence studies indicate that MLG epitopes in brown algae are unmasked by a pretreatment with alginate lyases to remove alginates. These findings are further discussed in terms of the origin and evolution of MLG in the Stramenopile lineage.
Author(s): Salmean AA, Duffieux D, Harholt J, Qin F, Michel G, Czjzek M, Willats WGT, Herve C
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Scientific Reports
Year: 2017
Volume: 7
Online publication date: 06/06/2017
Acceptance date: 24/04/2017
Date deposited: 05/07/2017
ISSN (electronic): 2045-2322
Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
URL: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-03081-5
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-03081-5
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