Commercial microbial polysaccharides: An annotated selection of World Wide Web sites relevant to the topics in Microbial Biotechnology

This review article provides a good overview of bacterial exopolysaccharides and their commercial significance. This review gives a comprehensive description of the structure, function and diverse applications of bacterial polysaccharides. Dextrans are among the oldest known bacterial polysac-charide products and are widely used in foods, cosmetics and biotechnology. This patent describes a bacterial exopolysaccharide with usefulness in enhanced oil recovery. This database provides some information on genes and pathways involved in the biosynthesis of bacterial polysaccharides. Gellan is an exopolysaccharide produced by aerobic fer-mentative growth of Sphingomonas elodea. Gellan gum is a water-soluble polysaccharide used as a microbiological gelling agent and in foods. This website gives the name of the producing organism as a Pseu-domonas, but that organism was more recently reclassified as a Sphingomonas strain. Guar gum is a plant polysaccharide that is used in foods and, most recently, in hydraulic fracturing to produce oil and gas. There is an ongoing search to find replacements due to the huge volumes required for the latter application. Xanthan gum is a polysaccharide secreted by the bacterium Xanthomonas campestris that is widely used in the food industry, as described in this Wikipedia entry. Levan is a polysaccharide made of fructose that is unusual by packing into a highly stable spherical structure. This website describes many of the properties and used of the polymer. terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.