Structure of a surface polysaccharide from Acinetobacter baumannii O16

✍ Scribed by Simon R. Haseley; Helen J. Diggle; Stephen G. Wilkinson

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 322 KB
• Volume: 293
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0008-6215
• DOI: 10.1016/0008-6215(96)00196-6

✦ Synopsis

Acinetobacter species are free-living, non-fermentative, Gram-negative bacteria, some of which have become important as opportunistic pathogens, often characterised by multiple drug resistance [1]. Of the various genospecies currently recognised, Acinetobacter baumannii is the one most commonly associated with nosocomial colonisation and infection, and many typing methods have been evaluated for the epidemiological monitoring of clinical isolates [2][3][4]. Typing of strains by their heat-stable antigens [assumed to be the O-specific side-chains of lipopolysaccharide (LPS)] has not been used extensively, but 34 O serogroups have been recognised [5]. During the course of a systematic study of the surface polysaccharides of A. baumannii, we have confirmed the presence of O-specific polymers in LPS extracts from the reference strains [6] for serogroups 02 [7], 05 [8], O10 [9], and O1 1 [10], as well as strain 214 (a clinical isolate) [1 1]. In each case the polymer had a branched, oligosaccharide repeating-unit incorporating at least one amino sugar residue, features also found in polymers isolated from other O serogroups ~. Here we report the structure of the O16 polymer, which probably also occurs as a minor polysaccharide in the O l 1 reference strain [10].