Experimental inoculation of sugarcane stalks with
Xanthomonas albilineans induces the appearance of a
new polysaccharide A mixture of polysaccharides containing
both HMMC and MMMC was obtained after filtration
of clarified juices through Sephadex G10, from eluted
fractions 28 to 47. HMMC and MMMC were separated by
filtration through a Sephadex G50 column, HMMC eluting
from fractions 50 to 77, with a net peak at fractions 53–56
and MMMC from fractions 78 to 100–140 (control in Fig. 1).
This pattern of elution did not significantly change for juices
obtained from stalk segments inoculated with G. diazotrophicus,
although the peak of polysaccharide eluting at
fractions 53–56 clearly increased. This peak was displaced
to fraction 50 when segments were inoculated with X.
albilineans, before or after inoculation with G. diazotrophicus
(Fig. 2). However, this peak at 50 ml markedly increased
when juices obtained from segments only inoculated
with X. albilineans were chromatographed, since the
amount of total polysaccharide collected was about 10 times
higher than that obtained from stalks inoculated with the
endosymbiont and then the pathogen (Fig. 2). When stalk
segments were simultaneously inoculated with both microorganisms,
the amount of polysaccharides produced was
very similar to that produced after inoculation with the
pathogen before the endosymbiont (Fig. 2) and that produced
after inoculation with the endosymbiont before the
pathogen (Fig. 2).