Occurrence and structure of lipoteichoic acids in the genusStaphylococcus

✍ Scribed by G. J. Ruhland; F. Fiedler

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 1990
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 763 KB
• Volume: 154
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0302-8933
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00276534

✦ Synopsis

Lipoteichoic acids were isolated from eleven species of the genus Staphylococcus using phenol-water partition and hydrophobic chromatography on octyl-Sepharose CL-4B. The lipoteichoic acids purified could be visualized by SDS-PAGE. They were shown to be composed of a hydrophilic poly(glycerophosphate) chain covalently linked to gentiobiosyldiacylglycerol, the common lipid anchor of these molecules. Glycerophosphate units of the hydrophilic chain were found to be partly substituted with ester-linked D-alanine, except in the case of S. cohnii. The lipoteichoic acids isolated from S. cohnii, S. hominis, S. saprophyticus and S. simulans contain alpha(1-2)-linked N-acetylglucosamine as an additional substituent of the poly(glycerophosphate) backbone.