Microbial polysaccharides from Gram-negative bacteria

The structures of many microbial polysaccharides from a wide variety of bac terial species and from some algae, fungi and yeasts have been determined. A number of bacterial polysaccharides have either been adopted as commercia l products or have the potential for commercialisation. The biosynthetic me chanisms for production of some of these polymers have also been elucidated and the effects of genetic manipulation have been studied. There is now al so a much greater knowledge of structure/function relationships in microbia l polysaccharides. While almost all this non-structural data has accumulate d from the study of Gram negative species, this background information prov ides a sound basis from which polysaccharides from Gram positive bacteria c an now be developed. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.