SLOW FOOD OR FAST FOOD? ENZYMATIC DIGESTION OF ALGAL CARBOHYDRATES BY BACTERIA IN THE OCEAN
Friday 1. June we will have a Jebsen seminar with a visiting researcher, Jan-Hendrik Hehemann, leader of the Glycobiology group at MARUM-MPI, Bremen. The seminar will be at 11:00 Friday 1st June, CGB Lunchroom, 4th Floor Realfagbygg. If you would like to chat to him, his time is very short so let Eoghan Reeves know asap.
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Jan-Hendrik Hehemann, Emmy Noether Research Group Leader, MPI-MARUM, Bremen
https://www.marum.de/wir-ueber-uns/MarineGlycobiology.html
Polysaccharides are abundant molecules synthesized by algae in the ocean and provide energy and carbon for bacteria. Bacteria are crucial for carbohydrate cycling because they can digest polysaccharides with enzymes and thereby access the energy also for other organisms. The digestibility of polysaccharides with enzymes dictates their nutritional role. On the other hand polysaccharides that are stable may store carbon for longer time scales in the ocean. To what extent polysaccharides differ regarding their digestibility remains unconstrained owing to the lack of analytical tools to quantify algal polysaccharides. Here we present bioanalytic strategies to measure polysaccharides and address questions concerning their reactivity. One example describes the use of enzymes of marine Flavobacteria to dissect algal polysaccharides such as laminarin in marine organic matter. This way we measure the abundance of laminarin and its contribution to marine energy metabolism during algal blooms, throughout ocean basins and in deeper waters.