PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Kaisei Maeda
AU  - Yukiko Okuda
AU  - Gen Enomoto
AU  - Satoru Watanabe
AU  - Masahiko Ikeuchi
TI  - Biosynthesis system of Synechan, a sulfated exopolysaccharide, in the model cyanobacterium <em>Synechocystis</em> sp. PCC 6803
AID  - 10.1101/2021.02.01.429190
DP  - 2021 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2021.02.01.429190
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/02/02/2021.02.01.429190.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/02/02/2021.02.01.429190.full
AB  - Extracellular polysaccharides of bacteria contribute to biofilm formation, stress tolerance, and infectivity. Cyanobacteria, the oxygenic photoautotrophic bacteria, uniquely and widely have sulfated extracellular polysaccharides and they may utilize the polysaccharides for survival in nature. In addition, sulfated polysaccharides of cyanobacteria and other organisms have been focused as beneficial biomaterial. However, very little is known about their biosynthesis machinery and function in cyanobacteria. Here we found that the model cyanobacterium, Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803, formed bloom-like cell aggregates using sulfated extracellular polysaccharides (designated as synechan) and identified whole set of genes responsible for synechan biosynthesis and its transcriptional regulation, thereby suggesting a model for the synechan biosynthesis apparatus. Because similar genes are found in many cyanobacterial genomes with wide variation, our findings may lead elucidation of various sulfated polysaccharides, their functions, and their potential application in biotechnology.