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Volume 153, Issue 7

A group of and O antigens sharing a common backbone structure Free

Abstract

The O-antigen moiety of the LPS is one of the most variable cell surface components of the Gram-negative bacterial outer membrane. Variation is due to the presence of different sugars and sugar linkages. Here, it is reported that a group of O serogroups (O17, O44, O73, O77 and O106), and the serogroup O : 6,14 (H), share a common four-sugar backbone O-subunit structure, and possess almost identical O-antigen gene clusters. Whereas the O77 antigen does not have any substitutions, the other O antigens in this group differ by the addition of one or two glucose side branches at various positions of the backbone. The O-antigen gene clusters for all members of the group encode only the proteins required for biosynthesis of the common four-sugar backbone. The identification of three genes within a putative prophage in the O44 genome is also reported; these genes are presumably involved in the glucosylation of the basic tetrasaccharide unit. This was confirmed by deletion of one of the genes, which encodes a putative glucosyltransferase. Structural analysis of the O antigen produced by the mutant strain demonstrated the absence of glucosylation. An O-antigen structure shared by five and one serogroups, all of which have a long evolutionary history, suggests that the common backbone may be important for the survival of strains in the environment, or for their pathogenicity.

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Keyword(s): GlcNAc, N-acetyl-d-glucosamine , ROESY, rotating Overhauser effect spectroscopy and TOCSY, total correlation spectroscopy
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2007-07-01
2024-04-23
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A group of Escherichia coli and Salmonella enterica O antigens sharing a common backbone structure
Microbiology 153, 2159 (2007); https://doi.org/10.1099/mic.0.2007/004192-0
/content/journal/micro/10.1099/mic.0.2007/004192-0
/content/journal/micro/10.1099/mic.0.2007/004192-0
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