Figure 1.
Schematic for extraction and purification of EPS exopolysaccharides.
Depending on strain, yields range from 2–15 mg of purified polysaccharide per starting 1.2 L of sludge.
Table 1.
Glycosyl Composition Analysis.
Table 2.
Glycosyl Linkage Analysis.
Figure 2.
EPS staining of E. coli strain 43894 biofilms.
The FITC-labeled mannose-specific HHA lectin was used to stain exopolysaccharides (green) and Hoechst 33342 was used to stain the bacterial nucleic acids (blue). (A.) Extracellular green staining of the EPS by FITC-HHA can be seen on 1 day old biofilms of E. coli at 200X. Scale bar = 5 µm. (B.) Confocal image of 3 day old E. coli biofilms at 63X. The large square panel is a plan view looking down on the biofilm. The top and right-side rectangular panels are vertical sections representing the XZ plane and YZ plane, respectively, at the positions indicated by the colored lines. The biofilm is 40 µm thick (i.e Z-axis).