Structure of the O-polysaccharide of Hafnia alvei strain PCM 1189 that has hexa- to octasaccharide repeating units owing to incomplete glucosylation Original Research Article

The O-polysaccharide of Hafnia alvei PCM 1189 consists of d-glucose, d-galactose, d-GalNAc and d-GlcA and lacks the strict regularity. The intact and carboxyl-reduced polysaccharides as well as oligosaccharides obtained by partial acid hydrolysis were studied by chemical and enzymatic analyses, methylation and NMR spectroscopy. The following structure was established for the O-polysaccharide, which is built up of branched hexa- to octasaccharide repeating units differing in the number of lateral glucose residues: where the glucose residues shown in italics are nonstoichiometric substituents. The repeating units include also a minor O-acetyl group, whose position was not determined.