CeBiTec Colloquium (unscheduled)

 date 

Tuesday, July 10th 2012, 16 c.t.

 location 

G2-104, CeBiTec Building

 speaker 

Prof. Dr. Otto Holst

Division of Structural Biochemistry,
Research Center Borstel, Leibniz-Center for Medicine and Biosciences

title 

Structure and function of certain bacterial glycolipids

abstract Glycolipids are amphiphilic membrane components that occur in all kingdoms of organisms, namely plants, animals including man, and bacteria. They represent a group of molecules possessing one or more monosaccharide units linked by a glycosyl linkage to a hydrophobic moiety like ceramide, acylglycerol, prenyl phosphate, or acylated sugars. Such glycoconjugates represent important factors of membrane and cell surface stabilization, and also play significant roles in various biological processes, like cell-cell communication or receptor modulation.
The presentation deals with some examples of bacterial glycolipids, like the glucosyldiacylglycerols from Enterococcus faecalis and their impact on biofilm production and adhesion, the rough-type lipopolysaccharide (LPS) from Acinetobacter lwoffii and its role in allergy protection, and the rough-type LPS from Yersinia pestis and why it is so important in plague.
 host 

Prof. Dr. Karsten Niehaus