Recent advances in the research of bacterial glucuronosyltransferases

Many bacterial extracellular polysaccharides, which play an important role in various biological processes, contain glucuronic acid (GlcA) as a major component. Glucuronosyltransferase (GlcA-T) is the enzyme responsible for GlcA attachment in the biosynthesis of these polysaccharides. GlcA-T has recently attracted significant attention because of its biological activities as well as its potential application to chemoenzymatic synthesis of GlcA-containing oligosaccharides and polysaccharides that are difficult to achieve chemically due to the problems related to glycosylation reactions with GlcA. At present, nine GlcA-Ts derived from Xanthomonas campestris, Pasteurella multocida, Escherichia coli, Sphingomonas paucimobilis, and Streptococci have been characterized. This article reviews the recent progresses made in understanding the structures, functions, physical, and chemical properties of reported GlcA-Ts.