Franco A V, Liu D, Reeves P R
Department of Microbiology, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales 2006, Australia.
J Bacteriol. 1998 May;180(10):2670-5. doi: 10.1128/JB.180.10.2670-2675.1998.
The O antigen is a polymer with a repeated unit. The chain length in most Escherichia coli strains has a modal value of 10 to 18 O units, but other strains have higher or lower modal values. wzz (cld/rol) mutants have a random chain length distribution, showing that the modal distribution is determined by the Wzz protein. Cloned wzz genes from E. coli strains with short (7 to 16), intermediate (10 to 18), and long (16 to 25) modal chain lengths were transferred to a model system, and their effects on O111 antigen were studied. The O111 chain length closely resembled that of the parent strains. We present data based on the construction of chimeric wzz genes and site-directed mutagenesis of the wzz gene to show that the modal value of O-antigen chain length of E. coli O1, O2, O7, and O157 strains can be changed by specific amino acid substitutions in wzz. It is concluded that the O-antigen chain length heterogeneity in E. coli strains is the result of amino acid sequence variation of the Wzz protein.
O抗原是一种具有重复单元的聚合物。大多数大肠杆菌菌株中的链长度的众数为10至18个O单元,但其他菌株具有更高或更低的众数。wzz(cld/rol)突变体具有随机的链长度分布,表明众数分布由Wzz蛋白决定。将来自具有短(7至16)、中等(10至18)和长(16至25)众数链长度的大肠杆菌菌株的克隆wzz基因转移到一个模型系统中,并研究了它们对O111抗原的影响。O111链长度与亲本菌株的链长度非常相似。我们基于嵌合wzz基因的构建和wzz基因的定点诱变给出数据,以表明大肠杆菌O1、O2、O7和O157菌株的O抗原链长度的众数可以通过wzz中的特定氨基酸取代而改变。得出的结论是,大肠杆菌菌株中O抗原链长度的异质性是Wzz蛋白氨基酸序列变异的结果。