Polysaccharide covalently linked to the peptidoglycan of the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. strain PCC6714.

A polysaccharide was found to be covalently linked to the peptidoglycan of the unicellular cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. strain PCC6714 via phosphodiester bonds. It could be cleaved from the peptidoglycan-polysaccharide (PG-PS) complex by hydrofluoric acid (HF) treatment in the cold (48% HF, 0 degrees C, 48 h) yielding a pure, HF-insoluble peptidoglycan fraction and an HF-soluble polysaccharide fraction. The PG-PS complex was isolated from the Triton X-100-insoluble cell wall fraction by hot sodium dodecyl sulfate treatment and digestion with proteases. Digestion of the complex with N-acetylmuramidase released the glycopeptide-linked polysaccharide, which was further purified by dialysis and gel filtration on Sephadex G-50 and G-200. The polysaccharide consisted of glucosamine, mannosamine, galactosamine, mannose, and glucose and had a molecular weight of 25,000 to 30,000. Muramic acid-6-phosphate was identified as the binding site of the covalently linked, nonphosphorylated polysaccharide as revealed by chemical analysis of linkage fragments of the PG-PS complex.