Functional, structural, and taxonomical diversity of glycoside transporters in bacteria
Abstract
Glycoside metabolization is a crucial function in bacteria and a key feature in fermentation and synthetic biology. To feed on various glycosides with complex structures, bacteria have developed very diverse mechanisms to recognize, transport, and degrade them. Despite their crucial role, transporters are hard to identify and study due to challenges in expressing membrane proteins in recombinant form and the fact that most bacteria are uncultivable. In this review, we present the available methods and technologies for identifying and characterizing bacterial glycoside transporters. We consolidate existing knowledge on experimentally validated glycoside transporters from different families, including TonB-dependent transporters, ATP-binding cassette transporters, the phosphotransferase system, and the major facilitator superfamily, highlighting their taxonomic, functional, mechanistic, and structural diversity. The disparity between the number of functionally characterized glycoside transporters and the vast amount of sequence data available underlines the need for more efficient approaches to determine their specificity and to better understand the molecular mechanisms of glycoside utilization in bacteria.
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BibTeX
@article{wang2026functional,
title = {{Functional, structural, and taxonomical diversity of glycoside transporters in bacteria}},
author = {Zhi Wang and Alexandra S Tauzin and Nicolas Terrapon and Matthieu Arlat and Xiaoqian Li and Gabrielle Potocki-Veronese and Aurore Labourel},
journal = {FEMS Microbiology Reviews},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.1093/femsre/fuag040/8780426},
url = {https://hal.science/hal-05761199v1},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Functional, structural, and taxonomical diversity of glycoside transporters in bacteria
AU - Zhi Wang
AU - Alexandra S Tauzin
AU - Nicolas Terrapon
AU - Matthieu Arlat
AU - Xiaoqian Li
AU - Gabrielle Potocki-Veronese
AU - Aurore Labourel
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/23
JO - FEMS Microbiology Reviews
DO - 10.1093/femsre/fuag040/8780426
UR - https://hal.science/hal-05761199v1
AB - Glycoside metabolization is a crucial function in bacteria and a key feature in fermentation and synthetic biology. To feed on various glycosides with complex structures, bacteria have developed very diverse mechanisms to recognize, transport, and degrade them. Despite their crucial role, transporters are hard to identify and study due to challenges in expressing membrane proteins in recombinant form and the fact that most bacteria are uncultivable. In this review, we present the available methods and technologies for identifying and characterizing bacterial glycoside transporters. We consolidate existing knowledge on experimentally validated glycoside transporters from different families, including TonB-dependent transporters, ATP-binding cassette transporters, the phosphotransferase system, and the major facilitator superfamily, highlighting their taxonomic, functional, mechanistic, and structural diversity. The disparity between the number of functionally characterized glycoside transporters and the vast amount of sequence data available underlines the need for more efficient approaches to determine their specificity and to better understand the molecular mechanisms of glycoside utilization in bacteria.
SN - 0168-6445
SN - 1574-6976
ER -