• Macromolecular Research
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.1-5
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• 2008

The enzymatic hydrolysis of chitin has been studied for almost a century, and early work established that at least two enzymes are required, a chitinase that mainly yields the disaccharide N,N'-diacetylchitobiose, or $(GlcNAc)_2$, and a "chitobiase", or ${\beta}$-N-acetylglucosaminidase, which gives the final product G1cNAc. This pathway has not been completely identified but has remained the central concept for the chitin catabolism through the $20^{th}$ century1 including in marine bacteria. However, the chitin catabolic cascade is quite complex, as described in this review. This report describes three biologically functional genes involved in the chitin catabolic cascade of Vibrios in an attempt to better understand the metabolic pathway of chitin.