HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

J. Biol. Chem., Vol. 281, Issue 38, 27932-27941, September 22, 2006

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) All Versions of this Article: 281/38/27932    most recent M605768200v1 Submit a Letter to Editor Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Request Permissions Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Choudhury, B. Articles by Carlson, R. W. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Choudhury, B. Articles by Carlson, R. W. Social Bookmarking                      What's this?

The Structure of the Major Cell Wall Polysaccharide of Bacillus anthracis Is Species-specific^*

Biswa Choudhury¹, Christine Leoff¹, Elke Saile^¶, Patricia Wilkins^¶, Conrad P. Quinn^¶, Elmar L. Kannenberg, and Russell W. Carlson²

From the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602, the ^¶Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia 30333, and the Departments of Microbiology and Biotechnology, University of Tübingen, D72076 Tübingen, Federal Republic of Germany

In this report we describe the structure of the polysaccharide released from Bacillus anthracis vegetative cell walls by aqueous hydrogen fluoride (HF). This HF-released polysaccharide (HF-PS) was isolated and structurally characterized from the Ames, Sterne, and Pasteur strains of B. anthracis. The HF-PSs were also isolated from the closely related Bacillus cereus ATCC 10987 strain, and from the B. cereus ATCC 14579 type strain and compared with those of B. anthracis. The structure of the B. anthracis HF-PS was determined by glycosyl composition and linkage analyses, matrix-assisted laser desorption-time of flight mass spectrometry, and one- and two-dimensional nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. The HF-PSs from all of the B. anthracis isolates had an identical structure consisting of an amino sugar backbone of 6)--GlcNAc-(14)--ManNAc-(14)--GlcNAc-(1, in which the -GlcNAc residue is substituted with -Gal and -Gal at O-3 and O-4, respectively, and the -GlcNAc substituted with -Gal at O-3. There is some variability in the presence of two of these three Gal substitutions. Comparison with the HF-PSs from B. cereus ATCC 10987 and B. cereus ATCC 14579 showed that the B. anthracis structure was clearly different from each of these HF-PSs and, furthermore, that the B. cereus ATCC 10987 HF-PS structure was different from that of B. cereus ATCC 14579. The presence of a B. anthracis-specific polysaccharide structure in its vegetative cell wall is discussed with regard to its relationship to those of other Bacillus species.

Received for publication, June 15, 2006

^* This work was supported in part by National Institutes of Health Grant NIAID Grant R21 AI059577 (to R. W. C.) and Department of Energy Grant DE-FG09-93ER20097 to the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center. The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.

¹ Both authors contributed equally to this manuscript.

² To whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel.: 706-542-4439; Fax: 706-542-4412; E-mail: rcarlson{at}ccrc.uga.edu.

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				C. Leoff, E. Saile, J. Rauvolfova, C. P Quinn, A. R Hoffmaster, W. Zhong, A. S Mehta, G.-J. Boons, R. W Carlson, and E. L Kannenberg Secondary cell wall polysaccharides of Bacillus anthracis are antigens that contain specific epitopes which cross-react with three pathogenic Bacillus cereus strains that caused severe disease, and other epitopes common to all the Bacillus cereus strains tested Glycobiology, June 1, 2009; 19(6): 665 - 673. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				C. Leoff, B. Choudhury, E. Saile, C. P. Quinn, R. W. Carlson, and E. L. Kannenberg Structural Elucidation of the Nonclassical Secondary Cell Wall Polysaccharide from Bacillus cereus ATCC 10987: COMPARISON WITH THE POLYSACCHARIDES FROM BACILLUS ANTHRACIS AND B. CEREUS TYPE STRAIN ATCC 14579 REVEALS BOTH UNIQUE AND COMMON STRUCTURAL FEATURES J. Biol. Chem., October 31, 2008; 283(44): 29812 - 29821. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				W. Kim, J.-Y. Kim, S.-L. Cho, S.-W. Nam, J.-W. Shin, Y.-S. Kim, and H.-S. Shin Glycosyltransferase - a specific marker for the discrimination of Bacillus anthracis from the Bacillus cereus group J. Med. Microbiol., March 1, 2008; 57(3): 279 - 286. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				C. Leoff, E. Saile, D. Sue, P. Wilkins, C. P. Quinn, R. W. Carlson, and E. L. Kannenberg Cell Wall Carbohydrate Compositions of Strains from the Bacillus cereus Group of Species Correlate with Phylogenetic Relatedness J. Bacteriol., January 1, 2008; 190(1): 112 - 121. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]