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Diversity of Microbial Sialic Acid Metabolism

Overview of attention for article published in Microbiology & Molecular Biology Reviews, March 2004
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (91st percentile)

Mentioned by

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15 patents
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7 Wikipedia pages

Citations

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486 Dimensions

Readers on

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495 Mendeley
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2 CiteULike
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Title
Diversity of Microbial Sialic Acid Metabolism
Published in
Microbiology & Molecular Biology Reviews, March 2004
DOI 10.1128/mmbr.68.1.132-153.2004
Pubmed ID
Authors

Eric R. Vimr, Kathryn A. Kalivoda, Eric L. Deszo, Susan M. Steenbergen

Abstract

Sialic acids are structurally unique nine-carbon keto sugars occupying the interface between the host and commensal or pathogenic microorganisms. An important function of host sialic acid is to regulate innate immunity, and microbes have evolved various strategies for subverting this process by decorating their surfaces with sialylated oligosaccharides that mimic those of the host. These subversive strategies include a de novo synthetic pathway and at least two truncated pathways that depend on scavenging host-derived intermediates. A fourth strategy involves modification of sialidases so that instead of transferring sialic acid to water (hydrolysis), a second active site is created for binding alternative acceptors. Sialic acids also are excellent sources of carbon, nitrogen, energy, and precursors of cell wall biosynthesis. The catabolic strategies for exploiting host sialic acids as nutritional sources are as diverse as the biosynthetic mechanisms, including examples of horizontal gene transfer and multiple transport systems. Finally, as compounds coating the surfaces of virtually every vertebrate cell, sialic acids provide information about the host environment that, at least in Escherichia coli, is interpreted by the global regulator encoded by nanR. In addition to regulating the catabolism of sialic acids through the nan operon, NanR controls at least two other operons of unknown function and appears to participate in the regulation of type 1 fimbrial phase variation. Sialic acid is, therefore, a host molecule to be copied (molecular mimicry), eaten (nutrition), and interpreted (cell signaling) by diverse metabolic machinery in all major groups of mammalian pathogens and commensals.

Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 495 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Germany 3 <1%
Brazil 3 <1%
United States 3 <1%
Canada 3 <1%
Sweden 1 <1%
Czechia 1 <1%
France 1 <1%
Chile 1 <1%
Peru 1 <1%
Other 6 1%
Unknown 472 95%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 111 22%
Researcher 91 18%
Student > Master 68 14%
Student > Bachelor 49 10%
Student > Doctoral Student 26 5%
Other 70 14%
Unknown 80 16%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 171 35%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 107 22%
Chemistry 43 9%
Immunology and Microbiology 29 6%
Medicine and Dentistry 21 4%
Other 30 6%
Unknown 94 19%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 12. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 05 December 2023.
All research outputs
#2,883,667
of 25,508,813 outputs
Outputs from Microbiology & Molecular Biology Reviews
#323
of 1,395 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#4,415
of 63,659 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Microbiology & Molecular Biology Reviews
#1
of 4 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,508,813 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 88th percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,395 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 14.7. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 74% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 63,659 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 91% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 4 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has scored higher than all of them