Structures of cell-wall phosphate-containing glycopolymers of Bifidobacterium longum BIM B-476-D.

Glycopolymers with oligosaccharyl phosphate repeats of two types and ribitol and glycerol teichoic acids were isolated from cell wall of Bifidobacterium longum BIM B-476-D by stepwise extraction with 10% CCl3CO2H. The following structures of the glycopolymers were established by sugar analysis, selective cleavage with aq 2% HOAc, dephosphorylation with 48% HF, 2D NMR spectroscopy, and high-resolution ESI MS: [structure: see text]. The ribitol teichoic acid also contains minor D-alanine, whose position was not determined.