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Journal of Bacteriology, June 2006, p. 4125-4130, Vol. 188, No. 11
0021-9193/06/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JB.01843-05
Copyright © 2006, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Molecular Basis of L-Rhamnose Branch Formation in Streptococcal Coaggregation Receptor Polysaccharides

Yasuo Yoshida,^1, Soumya Ganguly,² C. Allen Bush,² and John O. Cisar^1*

Oral Infection and Immunity Branch, National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892,¹ Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Maryland—Baltimore County, Baltimore, Maryland 21250²

Received 2 December 2005/ Accepted 14 March 2006

The presence of L-rhamnose (Rha) branches in the coaggregation receptor polysaccharides (RPS) of Streptococcus gordonii 38 and Streptococcus oralis J22 was eliminated by replacement of wefB with ermAM in these strains. The expression of this gene in S. oralis 34 did not, however, result in the addition of Rha branches to the linear RPS of this strain, which is identical to that produced by the wefB-deficient mutant of S. gordonii 38. This paradoxical finding was explained by a subtle difference in acceptor specificity of the galactose-1-phosphotransferases encoded by downstream wefC in S. gordonii 38 and wefH in S. oralis 34. These genes were distinguished by the unique ability of WefC to act on the branched acceptor formed by the action of WefB.

Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://jb.asm.org/.

Present address: Department of Dental Pharmacology, Iwate Medical University School of Dentistry, 1-3-27 Chuo-dori, Morioka, Iwate 020-8505, Japan.

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