In this video, we're going to introduce peptidoglycan. Peptidoglycan is a rigid mesh-like polysaccharide and protein mixture that is the main component of specifically bacterial cell walls. Peptidoglycan is a molecule that is specific to bacteria and is not found in archaea or eukarya.
That's something important to keep in mind. Peptidoglycan provides structural support, and helps to maintain rigidity for the cell since it is the main component of bacterial cell walls. If we take a look at our image below, notice over here we're showing you a bacterial cell. We're focusing mainly on the bacterial cell wall, which is again, the light blue layer that goes all the way around. If you zoom into that light blue layer, what you'll notice is that the structure is mainly composed of peptidoglycan.
What you see down below is the structure of peptidoglycan. It consists of polysaccharide components, but then it also has these protein linkages. Peptidoglycan is a polysaccharide and protein mixture. We'll talk a lot more about the structure of peptidoglycan in our next video.
But for now, this concludes our brief introduction to peptidoglycan. We'll be able to get some practice in our next video.