Carbohydrates articles from across Nature Portfolio

Polymerase Bcs3, which allows the fermentation-free synthesis of Haemophilus influenzae type b capsule for vaccine development, adopts a basket-like shape with all six active sites facing the interior, creating a protected environment for catalysis.

ß-glucans, potential prebiotic fibers derived from mycoprotein, can be degraded by human gut Bacteroides via extracellular glycoside hydrolases; produced oligosaccharides can in turn feed Bifidobacterium species as shown by a cross-feeding approach.

SGLT plays key roles in sugar uptake and reabsorption. Here the authors provided the cryo-EM structures of human SGLT1 and SGLT2 in the substrate-bound occluded state, uncovering the conformational changes of SGLT during sugar transport.

In this study, Skinner, Blanco-Fernández et al. show that uridine can be salvaged through the non-oxidative branch of the pentose phosphate pathway to feed glycolysis in conditions of glucose scarcity.

Spatial metabolomics are used to describe the location and chemistry of small molecules involved in metabolic phenotypes. Here, Conroy et al. present a bioinformatic pipeline to analyze MALDI data and show that it can be used to identify actionable targets such as glycogen in fibrotic lungs of both human and mice.