Microbiology
An atypical lipoteichoic acid from Clostridium perfringens elicits a broadly cross-reactive and protective immune response
Clostridium perfringens is a leading cause of food-poisoning and causes avian necrotic enteritis, posing a significant problem to both the poultry industry and human health. No effective vaccine against C. perfringens is currently available. Using an antiserum screen of mutants generated from a C. perfringens transposon-mutant library, here we identified an immunoreactive antigen that was lost in a putative glycosyltransferase mutant, suggesting that this antigen is likely a glycoconjugate. Following injection of formalin-fixed whole cells of C.Structures of Exopolysaccharides Involved in Receptor-mediated Perception of Mesorhizobium loti by Lotus japonicus
In the symbiosis formed between Mesorhizobium loti strain R7A and Lotus japonicus Gifu, rhizobial exopolysaccharide (EPS) plays an important role in infection thread formation. Mutants of strain R7A affected in early exopolysaccharide biosynthetic steps form nitrogen-fixing nodules on L. japonicus Gifu after a delay, whereas mutants affected in mid or late biosynthetic steps induce uninfected nodule primordia. Recently, it was shown that a plant receptor-like kinase, EPR3, binds low molecular mass exopolysaccharide from strain R7A to regulate bacterial passage through the plant's epidermal cell layer (Kawaharada, Y., Kelly, S., Nielsen, M.
