Pneumococcal lipoteichoic acid (LTA) is known to have a completely different chemical
structure compared with that of Staphylococcus aureus: the polyglycerophosphate in the
backbone is replaced in the pneumococcal LTA by a pentamer repeating unit consisting of
one ribitol and a tetrasaccharide carrying the unusual substituents phosphocholine and N-
acetyl-d-galactosamine. Neither d-alanine nor N-acetyl-d-glucosamine, which play central
roles in the biological activity of the staphylococcal LTA, has been reported. The extraction …