title: Chemical and enzymic analyses of Pichia polymorpha cell walls.
abstract: Conventional techniques of chemical analysis have shown that the cell walls of the yeast Pichia polymorpha, at early stationary growth phase, consisted of carbohydrate (about 85%), protein (8%), and lipid (7%). Glucose and mannose were the only neutral sugars and glucosamine the sole amino sugar present among the cell wall components. Paper and gas-liquid chromatographies of acid hydrolysates of purified cell walls and cell wall fractions proved that mannan and alkali-insoluble glucans, in that order, were the major polysaccharide components, accounting for 83% of the total carbohydrate content. The isolation of an alkali-soluble glucan, non-precipitable with Fehling's solution, has been achieved. Treatments of whole cell walls and their fractions with purified cell wall lytic enzymes have shown the presence of both 1,3- and 1,6-beta-D-linkages in all the glucan fractions. 1,3-alpha-Glucan was not detected. Mannan-glucan complexes have been found containing about 50% each of mannose and glucose. All polysaccharides exhibited different turnover rates when cells were grown in the presence of D-[U-14C]glucose. The morphogenetic implications of these results are discussed.
mesh_terms: D001203:Ascomycota / Q000032:analysis*; D002473:Cell Wall / Q000032:analysis; D002849:Chromatography, Gas; D002854:Chromatography, Paper; D043326:Glucan 1,3-beta-Glucosidase; D005936:Glucans / Q000378:metabolism; D005947:Glucose / Q000032:analysis; D005959:Glucosidases / Q000378:metabolism; D006026:Glycoside Hydrolases / Q000378:metabolism; D008055:Lipids / Q000032:analysis; D008358:Mannose / Q000032:analysis; D009584:Nitrogen / Q000032:analysis; D010843:Pichia / Q000032:analysis* / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D005936:Glucans; D008055:Lipids; D005959:Glucosidases; D006026:Glycoside Hydrolases; D043326:Glucan 1,3-beta-Glucosidase; C020105:endo-1,6-beta-glucanase; D005947:Glucose; D009584:Nitrogen; D008358:Mannose