Pfizer Handbook of Microbial Metabolites 



22 



CH20CH3 



CH— N= 



I 

 CHOH 



CHj 



CH3 

 Rhodosamine 

 (rhodomycin) 



Methyl-2,4-dideoxy-2-aminotetroside 

 (elaiomycin) 



Good reviews of aminosugars have been published. ^^'^"^ 



Other unusual sugars have been identified as components of 

 the polysaccharides, mucopolysaccharides, etc., which occur in 

 microbial cell walls and other cell tissues. Information can be 

 obtained on these by way of Appendix A. 



No attempt will be made here to discuss thoroughly the poly- 

 saccharides. Many references to this subject are listed in Ap- 

 pendix A and in the Bibliography. 



As mentioned above many of the large molecules of micro- 

 organisms are mucopolysaccharides, etc., which contain sugars 

 other than glucose. Glucose is in fact a relatively rare com- 

 ponent of such molecules, but galactose, galacturonic acid, 

 fucose, mannose and other sugars are common. Many hexoses 

 and pentoses can be formed from the parent sugar without 

 chain rupture. The intermediates in these interconversions are 

 known to be sugar nucleotides:^' 



X Sugar 



Base (Uracil 

 or 

 Guanine) 



OH OH 



I > > Y Sugar 



Epimerization 

 Oxidation 

 Reduction 

 Decarboxylation 



i^'T. Naito, Jap. }. Pharm. and Chem. 31 23 (1959). 



^''' A. B. Foster and D. Horton, "Advances in Carbohydrate Chem- 



