Paper published: “A marine bacterial enzymatic cascade degrades the algal polysaccharide ulvan”

To say it up front: We do not want to adorn ourselves with borrowed plumes. But we are happy with Prof. Gurvan Michel - who thanks to the Bessel award given to him by the Alexander von Humboldt foundation is currently a member of our group - that his paper on an ulvan degradation locus in the genome of the marine bacterium Formosa agariphila has been accepted for publication in Nature Biological Chemistry. The paper describes the full pathway involving twelve biochemically characterized carbohydrate-active enzymes, including two polysaccharide lyases, three sulfatases, and seven glycoside hydrolases that sequentially break down ulvan into fermentable monosaccharides. While the work described had been done before Gurvan joined our lab, his expertise in these enzymes was one of the reasons why we invited him in the first place. We have an interest in ulvan degrading enzymes as we are using them to produce defined ulvan oligomers which we can then assay for their plant strengthening activities. So while the paper describes the complete degradation of the green algal polysaccharides into monosaccharides that can be fermented for bioenergy or biomaterials, our goal is partial enzymatic degradation to yield high added-value oligosaccharides carrying biological activities. With Gurvan’s help, we hope to achieve this goal more readily. But for now: congratulations Gurvan!