Codeχ webinar: Prof. Dr. Jochen Zimmer from the University of Virginia, talked about “Polysaccharide biosynthesis by membrane-integrated processive glycosyltransferases”

Today, the second of our Codeχ Mercator fellows, Prof. Zimmer from the US, gave a fascinating seminar on transmembrane polysaccharide synthases. He is an internationally highly renowned expert on cellulose synthase who has been involved in elucidating how these enzymes couple the biosynthesis of high molecular weight cellulose polymers with their translocation across the plasma membrane, and how oligomeric forms of plant cellulose synthase facilitate their alignment into microfibrils in the extracellular space. He explained how cellulose synthase can be a model for other polysaccharide synthases, including hyaluronate synthase and, of course, also chitin synthase. In fact hyaluronic acid is a linear copolymer of N-acetylglucosamine and glucuronic acid, and as such, related to the linear homopolymer chitin consisting of just N-acetylglucosamine residues.