doi: 10.1111/j.1399-3054.2006.00728.x During soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merrill] embryo development, cell wall polysaccharides (CWPs) derived from UDP-glucuronic acid (UDP-GlcA) (uronic acids, arabinose, xylose) exhibited a linear increase during the period of 25–45 days after flowering (daf). At embryo maturity, CWPs derived from UDP-GlcA accounted for 39% of total CWPs. To ascertain the relati...

An analytical workflow was developed for the absolute quantification of uridine diphosphate (UDP)-sugars in plant material in order to compare their metabolism both in wild-type Arabidopsis thaliana and mutated plants (ugd2,3) possessing genetic alterations within the UDP-glucose dehydrogenase genes involved in UDP-sugar metabolism. UDP-sugars were extracted from fresh plant material by chlorof...

The protozoan parasite Trypanosoma brucei is the causative agent of the cattle disease Nagana and human African sleeping sickness. Glycoproteins play key roles in the parasite's survival and infectivity, and the de novo biosyntheses of the sugar nucleotides UDP-galactose (UDP-Gal), UDP-N-acetylglucosamine, and GDP-fucose have been shown to be essential for their growth. The only route to UDP-Ga...

UDP-galactose 4-epimerase catalyzes the interconversion of UDP-galactose and UDP-glucose during normal galactose metabolism. Within recent years the enzyme from Escherichia coli has been studied extensively by both biochemical and X-ray crystallographic techniques. One of several key features in the catalytic mechanism of the enzyme involves the putative rotation of a 4'-ketopyranose intermedia...

The heteropolymeric O-antigen of the lipopolysaccharide from Pseudomonas aeruginosa serogroup O5 as well as the band-A trisaccharide from Bordetella pertussis contain the di-N-acetylated mannosaminuronic acid derivative, beta-D-ManNAc3NAcA (2,3-diacetamido-2,3-dideoxy-beta-D-mannuronic acid). The biosynthesis of the precursor for this sugar is proposed to require five steps, through which UDP-a...

This perspective paper focuses on the most recent results suggesting a potential role for UDP-Glucose as a signaling molecule in plants. In animals, UDP-Glucose is well-established as an extracellular signaling molecule that is sensed by G-protein coupled receptors, activating several downstream defense mechanisms. Recent studies have shown that abnormal growth occurred in both vegetative and r...

Inherent vulnerability of the wireless medium renders it more susceptible to errors and losses than classical wired media. In this paper, we evaluate the suitability of protocols and strategies across different layers of the stack to provide real-time services over 802.11b wireless LANs. More specifically, within the context of cross-layer design, we compare the performance of UDP with UDP Lite...

We introduce UDP Lite – a lightweight version of UDP with increased flexibility in the form of a partial checksum. It allows senders to specify packets as partially insensitive to errors. The coverage of the checksum is specified by the sending application on a per-packet basis. Because of its close relationship to UDP, UDP Lite is easily integrated into an existing UDP implementation. UDP is a...

The P2Y14 receptor was initially identified as a G protein-coupled receptor activated by UDP-glucose and other nucleotide sugars. We have developed several cell lines that stably express the human P2Y14 receptor, allowing facile examination of its coupling to native Gi family G proteins and their associated downstream signaling pathways (J Pharmacol Exp Ther 330:162-168, 2009). In the current s...

An improved understanding of the biological activities of heparin requires structurally defined heparin oligosaccharides. The chemoenzymatic synthesis of heparin oligosaccharides relies on glycosyltransferases that use UDP-sugar nucleotides as donors. Uridine 5'-diphosphoiduronic acid (UDP-IdoA) and uridine 5'-diphosphohexenuronic acid (UDP-HexUA) have been synthesized as potential analogues of...