title: Structural studies on a lipoarabinogalactan of Crithidia fasciculata.
abstract: The monosaccharide D-arabinopyranose has only been found in glycoconjugates of the trypanasomatid parasites Leishmania major, Endotrypanum schaudinni and Crithidia fasciculata. The donor molecule for the relevant arabinosyltransferases is known to be GDP-alpha-D-Arap in L. major and C. fasciculata, and the latter organism is being used to study the biosynthesis of GDP-alpha-D-Arap. In this study, we describe the structure of the terminal product of arabinose metabolism in C. fasciculata, namely lipoarabinogalactan. This molecule was purified by hydrophobic-interaction chromatography and studied by a variety of techniques, including gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, electrospray mass spectrometry and chemical and enzymic digestions. These data show that lipoarabinogalactan contains a previously described D-arabino-D-galactan polysaccharide component covalently attached to a glycosylphosphatidylinositol type of membrane anchor that is similar to, but not identical with, that found in the lipophosphoglycans of the Leishmania.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry, University of Dundee, U.K.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Schneider
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Treumann
authors.forename: K G
authors.initials: KG
authors.lastname: Milne
authors.forename: M J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: McConville
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Zitzmann
authors.forename: M A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Ferguson
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002236:Carbohydrate Conformation; D002240:Carbohydrate Sequence; D016831:Crithidia fasciculata / Q000737:chemistry*; D005685:Galactans / Q000737:chemistry*; D008070:Lipopolysaccharides / Q000737:chemistry*; D013058:Mass Spectrometry; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D015394:Molecular Structure
chemical_list: D005685:Galactans; D008070:Lipopolysaccharides; C005653:arabinogalactan