Authors:

Hailey Mangio

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About Paper:

The O-antigen is a polysaccharidic component of lipopolysaccharide (LPS), located on the outer membrane of Gram-negative bacteria. It is a critical surface structure that influences bacterial pathogenesis and contributes to resistance to serum, particularly to heat-sensitive complement components. The O-antigen ligase enzyme, waaL, is involved in the biosynthesis and attachment of O-antigen to the core of LPS, and the pmi gene is required to synthesize the O-antigen side chain. In this project, Salmonella strains with waaL gene expression regulated by the sugars arabinose and rhamnose and with pmi mutations requiring mannose for O-antigen side chain synthesis were generated. Single-sugar and double-sugar regulated strains were compared by analyzing motility, serum resistance, and acid tolerance. Mutation-mediated variations in O-antigen synthesis were found to influence differences in motility, serum resistance, and acid tolerance among the strains tested. This study contributes to current understandings of the impact of surface modifications on Salmonella pathogenesis and informs directions for recombinant attenuated Salmonella vaccine development. Subsequent research could test additional measures such as bile resistance and examine effects of the mutations on Salmonella virulence in animal models. 14

Source:

University of Florida / 2024

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No topics listed

Co-authors:

Hailey Mangio