Glycobiology Advance Access originally published online on October 6, 2004
Glycobiology 2005 15(3):245-257; doi:10.1093/glycob/cwi002
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Glycobiology vol. 15 no. 3 © Oxford University Press 2005; all rights reserved.
The structure of cell wall 
-glucan from fission yeast
3 Bijvoet Center, Department of Bio-Organic Chemistry, Section of Glycoscience and Biocatalysis, Utrecht University, Padualaan 8, 3584 CH Utrecht, The Netherlands; 4 Department of Medical Biochemistry, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, Meibergdreef 15, 1105 AZ Amsterdam, The Netherlands; 5 Department of Molecular Cell Biology, Institute for Biomembranes, Utrecht University, Padualaan 8, 3584 CH Utrecht, The Netherlands; 6 Laboratory for Molecular Biology of Plants, Groningen Biomolecular Sciences and Biotechnology Institute, University of Groningen, Kerklaan 30, 9715 NN Haren, The Netherlands; and 7 Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences, University of Amsterdam, Nieuwe Achtergracht 166, 1018 WV Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2 To whom correspondence should be addressed; e-mail: f.hochstenbach{at}amc.uva.nl
Received on August 2, 2004; revised on September 26, 2004; accepted on October 1, 2004
Morphology and structural integrity of fungal cells depend on cell wall polysaccharides. The chemical structure and biosynthesis of two types of these polysaccharides, chitin and (1
3)-ß-glucan, have been studied extensively, whereas little is known about 
-glucan. Here we describe the chemical structure of -glucan isolated from wild-type and mutant cell walls of the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe. Wild-type -glucan was found to consist of a single population of linear glucose polymers, 
260 residues in length. These glucose polymers were composed of two interconnected linear chains, each consisting of 120 (13)-linked -D-glucose residues and some (14)-linked -D-glucose residues at the reducing end. By contrast, -glucan of an -glucan synthase mutant with an aberrant cell morphology and reduced -glucan levels consisted of a single chain only. We propose that -glucan biosynthesis involves an ordered series of events, whereby two -glucan chains are coupled to create mature cell wall -glucan. This mature form of cell wall -glucan is essential for fission-yeast morphogenesis.
Key words:
-glucan
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cell wall
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fission yeast
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morphogenesis
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polysaccharides
1 Present address: Department of Molecular Cell Biology and Immunology, Vrije Universiteit Medical Center, Van der Boechorststraat 7, 1081 BT Amsterdam, The Netherlands
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