Evidence for the occurrence of nucleotide-activated oligosaccharides in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Recently, nucleotide-activated oligosaccharides have been found to be invol ved in the biosynthesis of certain glycoconjugates in archaeal and bacteria l procaryotes. This paper describes the isolation and partial chemical char acterization of nucleotide-activated oligosaccharides from the eucaryotic m icrobe Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We purified four different nucleotide-acti vated oligosaccharides from cell extracts of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Thre e of the oligosaccharides were UDP, and one was TDP-activated. D-Glucose wa s the only carbohydrate constituent, except for one oligosaccharide, which also contained glucosamine. The chain length varied between two and four su gar residues.