The hot Perspective article from Richard Schmidt, Christian Pedersen, Yan Qiao and Ulrich Zähringer has been picked up by several media outlets interested in their work on bacterial lipoteichoic acids.
The team reported the synthesise of several LTAs – which are important important constituents of the cell wall of Gram-positive bacteria – and carried out studies on their biological activity. More work is needed to understand the recognition of LTAs by the innate immune system, but this work suggests that it is indeed the lectin pathway that LTAs interact with and paves the way for an improved understanding of infection by Gram-positive bacteria.
Here are some of the places the research has been highlighted:
Download the original Perspective article here for all the details:
Chemical synthesis of bacterial lipoteichoic acids: An insight on its biological significance
Richard R. Schmidt, Christian M. Pedersen, Yan Qiao and Ulrich Zähringer
Org. Biomol. Chem., 2011, 9, 2040-2052
DOI: 10.1039/C0OB00794C
