Structural and molecular characterization of Shigella boydii type 16 O antigen.

Abstract

Shigella is a well-known human pathogen causing dysentery and their typing is solely based on the O antigens. We investigated the chemical structure and gene cluster of Shigella boydii type 16 O antigen. As judged by sugar and methylation analyses along with NMR spectroscopy data, the O antigen has an O-acetylated branched pentasaccharide repeating O unit, which consists of two D-mannose residues (D-Man), one residue each of d-glucuronic acid (D-GlcA), N-acetylglucosamine (D-GlcNAc) and D-galactose (D-Gal), and the structure of the O unit was established. The O antigen gene cluster of S. boydii type 16 was identified and shown to contain putative genes for the synthesis of GDP-D-Man, genes encoding sugar transferases, O unit flippase (Wzx) and O antigen polymerase (Wzy) as expected. The function of the wzy gene was characterized by mutation test. Genes specific to S. boydii type 16 O antigen gene cluster were identified by screening 186 Escherichia coli and Shigella type strains, and can be used to develop PCR assays for detection of type 16 strains.

• Authors: Bin Liu, Sof'ya N Senchenkova, Lu Feng, Andrei V Perepelov, Tianzheng Xu, Sergei D Shevelev, Yajuan Zhu, Alexander S Shashkov, Ming Zou, Yuriy A Knirel, Lei Wang
• Journal: Gene (Gene) Vol. 380 Issue 1 Pg. 46-53 (Sep 15 2006) ISSN: 0378-1119 [Print] Netherlands
• PMID: 16859842 (Publication Type: Journal Article, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't)

Chemical References

• DNA Primers
• DNA, Bacterial
• O Antigens
• Oligosaccharides

Topics

• Base Sequence
• Carbohydrate Sequence
• DNA Primers (genetics)
• DNA, Bacterial (genetics)
• Genes, Bacterial
• Humans
• Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy
• Molecular Sequence Data
• Multigene Family
• O Antigens (chemistry, classification, genetics, metabolism)
• Oligosaccharides (chemistry, genetics)
• Polymerase Chain Reaction
• Shigella boydii (genetics, immunology, metabolism, pathogenicity)