Structure of the Phosphosaccharide-inositol Core of the Leishmania donovani Lipophosphoglycan

• Published in: The Journal of biological chemistry Vol. 264; no. 12; pp. 6711 - 6715
• Main Authors: Turco, S J, Orlandi, P A, Homans, S W, Ferguson, M A, Dwek, R A, Rademacher, T W
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bethesda, MD Elsevier Inc 25.04.1989; American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
• Subjects: Animals; Biological and medical sciences; Carbohydrate Sequence; Cell coat. Cell surface; Cell structures and functions; Chromatography, Gas; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Glycosphingolipids - analysis; Leishmania donovani; Leishmania donovani - analysis; Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy; Mass Spectrometry; Molecular and cellular biology; Molecular Sequence Data; Polysaccharides - analysis; Sugar Phosphates - analysis; Protozoa; Molecular structure; Leishmania donovani; Rhizoflagellata; NMR spectrometry; Mass spectrometry; Cell surface; Phospholipase C
• DOI: 10.1016/S0021-9258(18)83487-1
• ISSN: 0021-9258

The phosphosaccharide-inositol core of the lipophosphoglycan of Leishmania donovani was generated by treatment of the glycoconjugate with mild acid and digestion with phosphatidylinositol-specific phospholipase C. The core was purified and examined by one- and two-dimensional 1H-1H NMR and by methylation analysis. From the results, the carbohydrate core was elucidated as a phosphosaccharide attached to the inositol residue of the lyso-alkylphosphatidylinositol anchor of lipophosphoglycan as follows: PO4→6GalP(α 1→6)GalP(α 1→3)Galf(α 1→3)ManP(α 1→3)ManP(α 1→4)GlcNP(α 1→6)myo-inositol. The presence of an internal galactofuranose residue is highly unusual and the ManP(α 1→4)GlcNP(α 1→6)myo-inositol sequence is homologous to the respective portion of the glycosylphosphatidylinositol anchors reported for both the Trypanosoma brucei variant surface glycoprotein and the rat brain Thy-1 glycoprotein.