Bacterial Glycosulphatases and Sulphomucin Degradation

Abstract

The presence of a high bacterial population in a region of the gastrointestinal tract is usually associated with the secretion of sulphomucins into the mucus gel covering that region. The term 'sulphomucin' is a histochemical description of the staining properties of mucin. At present this term can only be qualitatively related to the percentage of sulphate in the mucin molecule, which makes the term difficult to use in a biochemical and functional sense. Sulphomucins are thought to carry out the normal functions attributed to mucins; in addition, heavy sulphation rate-limits the degradation of mucins by bacterial mucin-degrading glycosidases. A number of mucin-specific glycosulphatases have been reported in bacteria, although only two such enzymes have been purified. These enzymes remove part of the sulphate content from sulphomucins and make them more susceptible to further enzymic degradation. The variety of chain locations and sugar attachment sites of sulphate esters on the mucin oligosaccharides, taken together with the data on the enzymes, suggest there will be a spectrum of bacterial glycosulphatases, with different properties, cellular locations and substrate specificities. Bacterial glycosulphatases have the potential to modify sulphated glycoconjugates at mucosal surfaces and should prove useful as biochemical tools for the study of sulphated glycoconjugates.

Breath sulfides and pulmonary function in cystic fibrosis

“…demonstrated that strains of P. aeruginosa and B. cepacia, isolated from CF patients, can desulfate mucin through mucin sulfatase. After desulfation, mucin may become susceptible to bacterial proteinases and glycosidases generating amino acids and carbohydrates for bacterial consumption (24,25). To our knowledge, however, OCS has not been reported as a product of mucin degradation.…”

The distribution of mucous secreting cells in the gastrointestinal tracts of three small rodents from Saudi Arabia: Acomys dimidiatus , Meriones rex and Meriones libycus

“…It is suggested that sulfomucins are able to reduce the rate at which microflora degrade mucins (Robertson and Wright, 1997) as the high sulfate content of sulfomucins decrease its susceptibility to bacterial glycosidases, limiting the rate and extent of mucin degradation (Hino et al, 2012). Sulfomucins predominated over sialomucins in the colon of the African elephant, A. spinosissimus, cat, dog, some primates and rodent species, whereas mixed acid mucins predominated in the colon of C. cyanea species ( Table 5) in accordance to the Meriones species of the present study.…”

Xylanase supplementation to a wheat-based diet alleviated the intestinal mucosal barrier impairment of broiler chickens challenged byClostridium perfringens

“…Goblet cells can be separated histologically into neutral or acidic mucin-producing types, and the latter can be divided into sulphated or sialylated mucin-producing subtype (Kiernan, 1990). There is evidence that acidomucins (primarily sulfomucins) restrict mucolysis because of their resistance to degradation by bacterial glycosidases and host proteases (Robertson & Wright, 1997). Therefore, it was hypothesized that the number of total acidic mucin-containing goblet cells may have been elevated in the C. perfringens-challenged chickens because of protective properties against pathogens of acidomucin (Conour et al, 2002), and high bacterial populations have been associated with increased secretion of sulphomucins (Robertson & Wright, 1997).…”