Capsular Polysaccharide A is a tetrasaccharide polymer found on the surface of the Gram-negative gut bacterium <i>Bacteroides fragilis</i>. CPSA is a unique polysaccharide due to its zwitterionic character, which is responsible for giving it the ability to modulate the immune system. The immune system effects make it a potential therapeutic molecule. The second sugar in the tetrameric repeat is modified by a pyruvate addition. This pyruvate addition is fairly common, but the enzymes that catalyze these reactions, pyruvyltransferases, are not well-characterized. Using a disaccharide linked fluorescence isoprenoid probe the protein WcfO appears to catalyze pyruvate transfer to a galactose sugar linked to a bactoprenyl-acetamido-4-amino-6-deoxygalactopyranose. This is the first study in which a pyruvyltransferase has been characterized <i>in vitro</i> using a near native substrate, and it demonstrates when pyruvylation occurs in this biosynthesis pathway.

Characterization of the pyruvyltransferase WcfO from the CPSA biosynthetic pathway

249th National Meeting (2015)

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