Structure of the high molecular weight exopolysaccharide produced by Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis IPLA-R1 and sequence analysis of its putative eps cluster Original Research Article

Treatment of the EPS with mild acid cleanly removed the terminal d-galactofuranosyl residue. The eps cluster sequenced for strain IPLA-R1 showed high genetic homology with putative eps clusters annotated in the genomes of strains from the same species. It is of note that several genes coding for rhamnose-precursors are present in the eps cluster, which could be correlated with the high percentage of rhamnose detected in its EPS repeated unit.