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Journal of Bacteriology, October 2000, p. 5317-5324, Vol. 182, No. 19
0021-9193/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Varying the Abundance of O Antigen in
Rhizobium etli and Its Effect on Symbiosis with
Phaseolus vulgaris
K. Dale
Noel,1,*
Lennart S.
Forsberg,2 and
Russell
W.
Carlson2
Department of Biology, Marquette University,
Milwaukee, Wisconsin,1 and Complex
Carbohydrate Research Center, University of Georgia, Athens,
Georgia2
Received 7 April 2000/Accepted 9 July 2000
 |
ABSTRACT |
Judged by migration of its lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in gel
electrophoresis, the O antigen of Rhizobium etli mutant
strain CE166 was apparently of normal size. However, its LPS sugar
composition and staining of the LPS bands after electrophoresis
indicated that the proportion of its LPS molecules that possessed O
antigen was only 40% of the wild-type value. Its LPS also differed
from the wild type by lacking quinovosamine
(2-amino-2,6-dideoxyglucose). Both of these defects were due to a
single genetic locus carrying a Tn5 insertion. The
deficiency in O-antigen amount, but not the absence of quinovosamine,
was suppressed by transferring into this strain recombinant plasmids
that shared a 7.8-kb stretch of the R. etli CE3
lps genetic region
, even though this suppressing DNA
did not carry the genetic region mutated in strain CE166. Strain CE166
gave rise to pseudonodules on legume host Phaseolus vulgaris, whereas the mutant suppressed by DNA from
lps region
elicited nitrogen-fixing nodules. However,
the nodules in the latter case developed slowly and were widely
dispersed. Two other R. etli mutants that had one-half or
less of the normal amount of O antigen also gave rise to pseudonodules
on P. vulgaris. The latter strains were mutated in
lps region
and could be restored to normal LPS content
and normal symbiosis by complementation with wild-type DNA from this
region. Hence, the symbiotic role of LPS requires near-normal abundance
of O antigen and may require a structural feature conferred by quinovosamine.
 |
INTRODUCTION |
Rhizobium etli bacteria
induce bean plants to form root nodules in which they fix nitrogen. As
nodules develop, the bacteria penetrate to interior plant cell layers
by means of an infection thread, in which a linear bacterial colony is
surrounded by a tubular wall and plant plasma membrane that separates
the bacteria from plant cytoplasm (24).
Mutants of R. etli that lack the O-antigen portion of the
lipopolysaccharide (LPS) are defective in infection (6, 10, 30,
35). Fewer nodules are elicited by such mutants per region of
susceptible root, and in the nodules that are formed, very few bacteria
can be recovered. Microscopic examination reveals that the infection
threads in these nodules are distended and cease development within the
root hair or the subjacent cell layer (35). Closely
resembling the development of nodules elicited by mutants that do not
infect at all (46), the resulting nodule structure lacks
most features of a normal mature nodule and has been described as a
pseudonodule (27, 35). O-antigen-deficient mutants of
Rhizobium leguminosarum and Bradyrhizobium
japonicum also exhibit defects in infection and cause aberrant
development of nodules on their respective host legumes (4, 12,
22, 23, 37, 38, 39, 44).
Although these studies demonstrate that the presence of O antigen is
important in the symbiosis, the specific structural features that are
required are still not established (30). However, there is
evidence that addresses the question of how much O antigen each
bacterium must possess in order to be symbiotically proficient. In
R. etli mutant strain CE166 the proportion of LPS molecules that possess O antigen is less than normal (10). Strain
CE166 is as defective in symbiosis as mutants that lack O antigen
completely. Based on these properties of strain CE166, it has been
argued that R. etli must have more O antigen than this
strain in order to infect bean plants proficiently. However, work to be
presented shows that the LPS of strain CE166 also lacks quinovosamine
(QuiN) (2-amino-2,6-dideoxyglucose), which is contained in wild-type O-antigen-containing LPS as a single residue (6, 16, 17). Therefore, by itself, the phenotype of strain CE166 allows the possibility that either of these LPS features
the relative content of
O-antigen-containing LPS or the presence of QuiN
is crucial in the symbiosis.
In previous work it was reported that the O-antigen deficiency and the
symbiotic defects of this mutant fortuitously were suppressed by the
introduction of lps DNA that does not contain the genetic
locus that is mutated in CE166 (10). The biochemical and
genetic basis for this suppression was examined further in the work
described below. In particular, the suppressed strain was examined for
QuiN content in its LPS. The symbiotic phenotype resulting from this
genetic suppression was scrutinized more completely as well.
Two other mutants that synthesize less O-antigen-containing LPS than
normal were isolated. They exhibited the same symbiotic phenotype as CE166.
The results strengthen the argument that the relative amount of O
antigen is an important symbiotic determinant. At the same time, some
of the findings are consistent with previous suggestions (12,
20) that specific LPS residues may be important for infection and/or nodule development. In addition, consideration of the proposed structure of the LPS and the absence of QuiN in CE166 raise intriguing questions about the fidelity of complex polysaccharide biosynthesis.
 |
MATERIALS AND METHODS |
Growth of bacteria.
Bacteria were grown to stationary phase
in TY broth
a medium composed of 0.5% tryptone, 0.3% yeast extract,
and 10 mM calcium chloride (3, 41)
at 30°C in Fernbach
flasks (for LPS chemical analysis) or glass tubes (for plant
inoculation) shaken at 200 rpm.
Isolation of mutants CE394 and CE395.
Wild-type strain CE3
(Table 1) was subjected to transposon
mutagenesis with Tn5 suicide plasmid pSUP2021 (10,
42). Kanamycin-resistant colonies were screened for binding of
monoclonal antibody JIM28 under conditions in which the LPS I of strain
CE3 changes so that the antibody no longer binds (32). The
details of the screening procedure will be described in a forthcoming
report (V. J. Neumann, D. M. Duelli, and K. D. Noel,
unpublished data). Certain properties of these strains have been
reported previously (31).
Construction of strain CE451.
The 11-kb EcoRI
fragment of strain CE166 that contains the Tn5 insertion was
cloned into the EcoRI site of pBluescript and subcloned into
plasmid pJQ200 (40) by ApaI and XbaI
digestion of vector and source DNA. This construct (pEQ166) (Table 1)
was transferred into strain CE3, and substitution of the
lps-166 mutant locus for the corresponding wild-type locus
was selected by plating on TY agar containing kanamycin (30 mg/ml) and
5% sucrose (40). Strain CE451 was one of the colonies
arising on this plate.
SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE).
Sodium
dodecyl sulfate (SDS) extracts of washed cells from fully grown
cultures were subjected to electrophoresis in 18% polyacrylamide, and
the gels were stained by the periodate-silver procedure as described
previously (10). Relative amounts of LPS in different bands
were assessed by analysis of the silver staining with an Ambis optical
imaging system (32).
LPS chemical analysis.
LPS was extracted by the hot
phenol-water method (6) and purified by either Sepharose 4B
chromatography (8, 10) or by polymyxin-agarose affinity
chromatography (17). Neutral sugars and aminosugars were
quantified by gas chromatography on SP2330 columns (Supelco) as alditol
acetate derivatives after hydrolysis in 2 M trifluoroacetic acid at
121°C for 2 h (1), whereas the content of acidic
sugars was determined by gas chromatography on DB-1 (J & W Scientific)
and SPB-1 (Supelco) columns as trimethylsilyl (TMS) methyl glycoside
derivatives after methanolysis in methanolic 1 M HCl (17).
The main GC peak contributed by glucuronic acid (GlcA) during TMS
methyl glycoside formation coincides with a peak contributed by
C14 hydroxy fatty acids; therefore, some samples were first
treated at 100°C with 1% acetic acid to remove lipid A before
subjecting the soluble material to derivatization and GC analysis.
High-performance anion exchange chromatography (HPAEC) on a Carbo Pac
PA-1 column (Dionex), eluted with a sodium acetate gradient in 100 mM
sodium hydroxide, was carried out after treatment of the purified LPS
with 1% acetic acid at 100°C as previously specified (7).
Complementation or suppression of mutants with cloned wild-type
DNA.
Cloned DNA in Escherichia coli was transferred to
R. etli recipients by conjugation as described previously
(10, 11, 13), using plasmid pRK2013 or its derivative pRK600
(15) to mobilize the plasmids listed in Table 1.
Nodulation tests.
R. etli strains were tested for
nodulation of Phaseolus vulgaris L. cv. Midnight Black
Turtle Soup in growth pouches as previously described (35).
Nitrogenase activity was measured by the acetylene reduction catalyzed
by intact nodulated roots (19, 34), after which the nodules
were stripped off the roots, counted, and weighed. Bacterial CFU were
determined from crushed, surface-sterilized nodules (35).
Infection by strains labelled with
gusA (Table
1) was
determined after making longitudinal hand sections from 1-cm-long
segments
of nodulated roots with fresh portions of double-edged razor
blades.
The slices were placed immediately in 1 ml of

-glucuronidase
(GUS) staining solution (50 mM sodium phosphate [pH 7.0], 1 mM
EDTA,
0.1% Sarkosyl, 0.1% Triton X-100, 1 mM ferricyanide, 1 mM
ferrocyanide, and 500 µg of 5-bromo-4-chloro-3-indonyl-

-glucuronic
acid [X-GlcA] [from Biosynth] per ml) in a loosely capped
13-by-100-mm
glass tube and incubated for 30 min to 24 h at 30°C
with shaking
in the dark (
47). Staining was arrested by
removing the staining
solution and replacing it with the same solution
without X-GlcA
or ferricyanide or ferrocyanide. Sharply defined blue
infection
traces were observed in wet mounts of the slices by light
microscopy.
 |
RESULTS |
O-antigen structure and content of CE166.
The SDS-PAGE gel in
Fig. 1 compares the LPS profiles of
strain CE166 and wild-type strain CE3. The slower-migrating bands labeled as LPS I carry the polysaccharide portion designated as O
antigen, whereas faster-migrating bands labeled as LPS II do not
(6). The relative deficit of LPS I in CE166 is apparent. From image analysis of the silver staining of similar gels, the mutant
appeared to harbor 34% as much LPS I as the wild-type strain (relative
to the same amount of LPS II). However, the migration in SDS-PAGE
suggested that the mutant LPS I was approximately the same size as the
wild-type LPS I.

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FIG. 1.
SDS-PAGE comparison of relative amounts of LPS I and LPS
II in strains CE166, CE166 , and wild-type CE3. SDS extracts of
washed cell pellets were loaded to give roughly equal amounts of total
LPS. The band that migrates faster than LPS II comigrates with purified
lipid A. Lanes: 1, CE3; 2, CE166; 3, CE166 .
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The sugar compositions of the wild-type and the mutant LPSs are given
in Table
2. The contents of the O-antigen
sugars fucose,
O-methyl-6-deoxyhexoses, and glucuronic acid relative to
core
sugars galactose and galacturonic acid indicated that the mutant
had about 40% as much O-antigen as the wild type. The mutant LPS
was
devoid of QuiN, which in the wild type is present as a single
residue
per LPS I molecule (
16,
17). The gas chromatograms
after
either alditol acetate or TMS methylglycoside derivatization
failed to
show any signal at the elution time of this sugar. In
addition, mass
spectral scans for the signature ion of 2-aminosugars
(e.g.,
m/z 173 from the TMS methylglycoside) detected only
glucosamine.
To have escaped detection, the mutant must have less than
1% of
the wild-type content of QuiN.
In other respects the LPS of the mutant was similar to the wild-type
LPS. The relative proportions of galacturonic acid, galactose,
and
mannose (Table
2) suggested that the inner core region of
the LPS
(
17) remains intact in CE166. This inference was supported
by HPAEC of oligosaccharides released by mild acid cleavage at
3-deoxy-
D-
manno-2-octulonic acid (Kdo) residues.
After hydrolysis
with 1% acetic acid at 100°C, the characteristic
HPAEC peaks that
arise from wild-type LPS core structure (
7)
were found in the
hydrolysate of CE166 LPS also (data not
shown).
The LPS I of CE166 also resembled the wild-type LPS I antigenically. It
reacted with the four monoclonal antibodies (JIM26,
JIM27, JIM28, and
JIM29) known to recognize the LPS I of
R. etli CE3 but not
the LPS I of other
Rhizobium strains that have been
tested
(
3,
45). Also like the wild type (
32,
45), mutant
CE166 altered the LPS structure during growth in the presence
of bean
exudates or low pH, such that antibodies JIM28 and JIM29
no longer
bound (data not
shown).
Linkage of two LPS defects to same genetic locus.
Strain CE451
was selected as a recombinant in which the 11-kb EcoRI
fragment of CE166 carrying the Tn5 insertion had replaced the corresponding wild-type DNA of strain CE3. This strain exhibited the sugar composition of strain CE166, specifically the absence of QuiN
and the deficiency in O-antigen sugars. On SDS-PAGE strain CE451
exhibited the LPS I deficiency of CE166, having about one-third the LPS
I content of wild-type CE3 relative to LPS II (data not shown).
Suppression by DNA from R. etli lps region
.
Recombinant plasmid pCOS109.11 carries 30 kb of R. etli DNA
(Fig. 2). The genes within this DNA that affect LPS are known collectively as lps region
(29). In previous
work (10) this plasmid was transferred into mutant CE166 to
create strain CE166
(Table 1). In strain CE166
the abnormal ratio
of LPS I and LPS II of strain CE166 is suppressed (Fig. 1). By image
analysis of LPS staining on SDS PAGE (e.g., Fig. 1), the LPS I content
of strain CE166
was at least 85% of the wild-type value relative to
LPS II. This conclusion also was supported by the contents of O-antigen
sugars, which averaged about 80% of the wild-type values (Table 2).
Although the mean values of the molar ratios of O-antigen sugars in
CE166
LPS were uniformly lower than those of the wild type (Table
2), the differences were only marginally statistically significant at
the 90% confidence level for Fuc and Man contents, and not significant
even at that level for differences in the O-methyl-deoxyhexoses. On the
other hand, the differences between CE166 and CE166
in contents of
O-antigen sugars were statistically significant at the 99% confidence
level in a t test.
Although the amount of LPS I was obviously boosted in CE166

, the LPS
of this strain clearly retained one deficiency of CE166
LPS. It lacked
QuiN (Table
2).
Using SDS-PAGE as the assay, shorter portions of this
lps
genetic region (
11) were tested for suppression of CE166.
Plasmids
pDEL2, pDEL2-3, and pDEL14 (Fig.
2) also suppressed the LPS I/LPS
II
deficiency, whereas pDEL21 did not (data not shown). Therefore,
the
suppression appears to require one or more genes in the 7.8-kb
region
common to both pDEL2-3 and pDEL14 (Fig.
2).

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FIG. 2.
The R. etli CE3 lps and
lps-166 genetic regions. The lps locus is a
contiguous stretch of DNA shown on the left. The dotted line indicates
that lps-166 is separated from the lps locus
by an undetermined distance along the chromosome. Ticks on the upper
line indicate the positions of EcoRI sites. The relative
locations of the Tn5 insertions of four mutants in this
study are indicated by arrows above this line. The lines below indicate
stretches of DNA from lps that are contained in the
specified plasmids. The lps DNA responsible for the
suppression of lps-166 is located in the region indicated by
the striped box.
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|
Other R. etli mutants deficient in LPS I amount.
Like strain CE166, mutant strains CE394 and CE395 (Table 1) also made
LPS I in lower amounts than the wild type (Fig.
3). The purified LPS from CE395, the
strain with the higher LPS I content, had the normal content of QuiN
(Table 2). Aside from having lower ratios of all O-antigen sugars, it
specifically lacked the 2-O-methyl-6-deoxyhexose found in the wild type
(Table 2).

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FIG. 3.
SDS-PAGE of SDS extracts of washed cell pellets of
strains showing variation in LPS I content and the same strains after
complementation with lps region . Lanes: 1, wild-type
CE3; 2, CE395; 3, CE395 ; 4, CE394; 5, CE394 .
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The Tn
5 insertion mutations in strains CE394 and CE395 were
located in
EcoRI fragments within the
lps 
region (Fig.
2), as
shown by DNA-DNA hybridization. Southern blots of
EcoRI digests
of the DNA from strains CE394, CE395, and CE3
(wild type) were
probed with labeled pCOS109.11. A wild-type 0.93-kb
band was replaced
with a 6.5-kb band in CE394, and an 8.5-kb band was
present in
CE395 instead of the 2.9-kb wild-type band. These size
increases
are consistent with mutation by insertion of the 5.8-kb
transposon.
In this type of analysis, CE166 DNA gave the same
hybridization
pattern with pCOS109.11 as wild-type
DNA.
Plasmid pCOS109.11 restored the normal LPS I/LPS II ratio when
transferred into these mutants (CE394

and CE395

[Fig.
3]).
As
expected from the location of the insertion mutations, plasmids
pDEL2
and pDEL2-3 (Fig.
2) also restored the normal LPS I amount,
whereas
plasmids pDEL14 and pDEL21 did not (data not shown). The
genetic region
in which these mutations map and which complements
these mutants,
therefore, is distinct from the locus that suppresses
CE166.
Symbiotic phenotypes.
Mutant CE166 gave rise to the
pseudonodulation typical of certain auxotrophs and mutants that lack
LPS I (10, 27); the (pseudo)nodules developed in a slow,
stunted fashion, were highly dispersed along the root, and never
exhibited nitrogen-fixing activity (Table
3). Infections were examined by using a
derivative of strain CE166 carrying gusA (strain CE434
[Table 1]) and viewing the staining of GUS activity in hand sections
of (pseudo)nodules by light microscopy. The results supported previous
observations (10) that infections by CE166 stopped within
the infected root hairs or at most penetrated one to two cell layers
beyond. Infections by a gusA-containing derivative of mutant
CE109 (strain CE433, Table 1), which lacks O antigen completely
(6), gave results indistinguishable from those of CE166.
On the other hand, strain CE166

gave rise to true nodule
development, although many fewer nodules appeared and their development
lagged at least 4 days behind the development incited by the wild
type.
For instance, at 14 days after inoculation (d.a.i.), these
nodules were
smaller and much less active than those incited by
the wild type (Table
3). However, although never as many nodules
developed, at 20 d.a.i. the nodules were larger and nearly as
active as those of the
wild type (Table
3). Whereas nodules inoculated
by CE166 averaged
10
4 CFU/nodule, those inoculated with either CE3 or
CE166

averaged
2 × 10
7 CFU/nodule at this time. At
26 d.a.i. the nodules induced by
the suppressed mutant averaged
twice the mass of the wild-type
nodules, although the specific
nitrogenase activity was still
less than wild type (Table
3).
Similarly, infections by CE166
(viewed by GUS staining of
gusA-containing derivative CE346 [Table
1]) were greatly
behind those of the wild type at 16 d.a.i. but
were comparable to
those of the wild type by 26 d.a.i. Bacterial
isolates from the
eventually well-developed nodules incited by
CE166

gave the same
delay in nodule development as CE166

(CE166

N
of Table
3).
CE166 transconjugants carrying pDEL2-3 or pDEL14
gave results similar
to those of CE166

(data not
shown).
Mutants CE394 and CE395 exhibited the same symbiotic block as CE166.
However, when strains CE394 and CE395 were complemented
with wild-type
alleles carried on plasmids pCOS109.11, pDEL2,
or pDEL2-3, their
symbiotic properties were similar to those of
the wild type and clearly
superior to CE166 suppressed by carrying
these same plasmids (Table
3).
In summary, the tested strains fell into three groups according to
development of the symbiosis. Group I (strains CE3, CE394

,
and
CE395

) had normal or near-normal proficiency. Group II consisted
of
strains CE166

and CE374, the latter being a previously documented
strain that appears to have very subtle alterations in LPS I structure
(
32). These strains elicited markedly fewer nodules, whose
development
was obviously slower (at least 4 days behind that of the
wild
type) but eventually had near-normal specific nitrogen-fixing
activity and greater masses than normal. Group III (strains CE166,
CE394, and CE395) elicited sparsely distributed pseudonodules
that
contained very low numbers of bacteria and lacked nitrogen-fixing
activity.
 |
DISCUSSION |
Structural alterations of CE166 LPS.
Clearly, there are at
least two alterations: the absence of QuiN and the reduced amount of O
antigen in the LPS population. In other respects the structure of
strain CE166 LPS I appears to be similar to that of the wild type, as
revealed by antigenic reactions, sugar ratios, and SDS-PAGE migration.
The absence of QuiN is intriguing. Structural analysis indicates that
QuiN (as its
N-acetyl derivative) is present as a 1,3-linked
residue in the wild-type LPS structure at the junction between
the core
oligosaccharide and O-antigen repeating unit (Fig.
4)
(
16,
17), such that its
elimination should truncate the LPS
at that point. One possibility is
that it is substituted by another
residue to allow for LPS I production
in strain CE166. The sugar
compositions of CE166 and CE166

LPS do
not reveal an obvious
candidate for this substituted residue, however.
In particular,
glucosamine does not appear to be substituted for QuiN
(Table
2).

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FIG. 4.
Proposed structure of LPS I of R. etli CE3
(16, 17). Features affected in mutants CE166 and CE395 are
noted. Designation as O antigen is arbitrarily assigned to all
contiguous residues released with the Kdo most distal to lipid A after
mild hydrolysis that cleaves at Kdo residues (16, 23).
Chemical analysis indicates that Fuc residues are only partially
O-methylated at the positions shown (16). R, the various
hydroxyfatty acyl groups that are ester- and amide-linked at the
positions indicated in the lipid A portion; TOMFuc, tri-O-methylated
Fuc; 3M6dTal, 3-O-methyl-6-deoxytalose; QuiNAc, N-acetylquinovosamine;
GlcON, 2-aminogluconate. All other abbreviations are defined in Table
2.
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Genetic and biochemical basis of the effect of lps
DNA on CE166.
Genetic analysis indicates that the effect of
pCOS109.11 is one of extragenic suppression. The cloned
EcoRI fragment of CE166 that contains the Tn5
insertion is not of a size expected of an insertion in any of the
EcoRI fragments of pCOS109.11, nor does it hybridize with
the DNA of pCOS109.11 in Southern blots (9, 10). Likewise,
the pattern of EcoRI bands revealed by hybridization with
pCOS109.11 as a probe is the same in both CE166 and CE3.
That the Tn
5 insertion is the cause of both mutant
phenotypes is supported by the results of transferring the
Tn
5- mutated
locus into the wild-type genetic
background, by low-resolution
chromosomal linkage analysis in previous
work (
9,
10), and
by homogenotization with the
Tn
5-mutated
EcoRI fragment of CE166
in this
study. Km
r transconjugants had the SDS-PAGE and symbiotic
phenotypes of
CE166. Importantly, analysis of transconjugant strain
CE451 shows
that the Tn
5-mutated locus confers both the LPS
I deficiency and
the absence of QuiN, whereas the DNA within pCOS109.11
(
lps region

) suppresses only the LPS I
deficiency.
Very recent single-pass nucleotide sequencing outward from the
Tn
5 insertion of CE166 indicates that it is situated in an
open reading frame specifying a protein of 325 amino acids that
is
homologous to a family of enzymes involved in deoxysugar synthesis
(K. D. Noel, unpublished data). The highest matches are to two
proteins (WbfT and WbpV, with 50 and 47% identity, respectively)
believed to be involved in the second step of the synthesis of
UDP-QuiNAc from UDP-GlcNAc (
2).
The DNA responsible for the suppression apparently lies within the
7.8-kb
EcoRI fragment common to plasmids pDEL2-3 and pDEL14.
This DNA exists already in CE166, presumably with wild-type
functionality
if the mutant phenotypes are conferred by the
Tn
5 insertion mapping
elsewhere. Therefore, it is likely
that the suppression is due
to the multicopy dosage of a gene or genes
in this 7.8-kb
EcoRI
fragment.
There are several reasonable hypotheses for the biochemical mechanism
of suppression, with the basic premise being that the
gene encodes a
transferase, O-antigen exporter, or LPS ligase
with lax specificity or
that it specifies a regulatory factor,
and that multiple genetic copies
lead to higher concentration
of the encoded protein. Variations of this
idea are worth pursuing
as a means of producing wild-type amounts of
other polysaccharides
having an altered or absent residue, so that the
biological importance
of the residue itself can be tested. A case in
point is the 2-O-methylation
of fucose that is absent from mutant CE395
and whose absence probably
is the cause of the lower O-antigen
synthesis or attachment to
lipid
A.
Implications regarding requirements of LPS structure for
symbiosis.
Comparisons of the phenotypes of strains CE166,
CE166
, and CE3 indicate that LPS I must be more abundant than LPS II
in order that a strain be successful in the symbiosis between R. etli and bean roots. The structure conferred by a particular
residue, QuiN, may also be important, but the argument based on the
data of this study for this LPS I feature is equivocal.
Restoration of near-normal LPS I/LPS II ratio in CE166 harboring
pCOS109.11 (and its derivatives pDEL2-3 and pDEL14) was accompanied
by
sufficiently restored symbiotic proficiency that CE166

infections
yielded well-developed nodules with nitrogen-fixing activity.
An
obvious inference is that relative abundance of LPS I is crucial
in
symbiosis. This conclusion is supported also by the phenotypes
of
strains CE394 and CE395. In fact, there are no exceptions to
this idea
among the approximately 30
R. etli mutants altered in
LPS
structure. Strain CE395 has the most LPS I of any mutant obviously
deficient in LPS I; this mutant and all strains carrying less
LPS I
fail at an early stage in infection. It should be noted
that all extant
strains having a lower LPS I/LPS II ratio exhibit
additional
abnormalities in LPS structure, e.g., the abnormal
LPS I banding of
CE394 and CE395 (Fig.
3), the methylated sugar
missing from strain
CE395, and the absence of QuiN from mutant
CE166. Nevertheless, the
only obvious feature common to CE166,
CE394, and CE395 is deficiency in
the relative amount of LPS
I.
Although near restoration of O-antigen amount in CE166

overcomes the
absolute block in infection suffered by mutant 166,
nodule development
by CE166

is slower and sparser than normal.
The difference in
symbiosis between CE166

and wild type might
be due to either of two
deficiencies in LPS structure in strain
CE166

. According to
SDS-PAGE, strain CE166

consistently had
a lower LPS I/LPS II ratio
than the wild type, and its content
of O-antigen sugars was lower
(although without high statistical
confidence). Hence, that its
symbiotic phenotype was intermediate
between those of CE166 and the
wild type could be because LPS
I content in CE166

is not restored
completely to wild-type levels.
On the other hand, the LPS of strain
CE166

also differed from
wild-type LPS in lacking QuiN. It may be
that this portion of
the LPS structure is specifically involved in
promoting nodule
development (perhaps by promoting an interaction
required in infection
thread
development).
Another possibility is that CE166

suffers problems caused by
multiple copies of plasmid pCOS109.11 or its possible instability
(
36). However, mutants CE394 and CE395 complemented with
pCOS109.11
behave in symbiosis much more like wild type than CE166

(Table
3); therefore, this possibility seems less
likely.
Comparison with mutant CE374 and LPS mutants of other species.
The LPS and symbiotic phenotypes of CE166
are reminiscent of the
phenotypes of R. etli mutant strain CE374, whose properties also have suggested that specific LPS structure plays a role in the
frequency of nodule formation and in the rate of infection. Strain
CE374 appears to have wild-type amounts of LPS I, but its LPS I
displays subtle antigenic differences and minor differences in SDS-PAGE
banding compared with the wild type (32, 45). Although the
symbiotic deficiencies of strain CE374 are very similar to those of
CE166
, strain CE374 is not deficient in QuiN. In fact, analysis of
sugar composition has not revealed an obvious difference between the
LPSs of mutant CE374 and the wild type. The difference may be in
acid-labile "decorations" of LPS I residues.
Examples from other species of LPS mutants that elicit delayed and/or
slow nodule development include
Sinorhizobium meliloti mutant Rm6963 on alfalfa (
25,
28) and
Bradyrhizobium
elkanii mutant SM1 on soybean (
26,
43). In each case,
more than one
sugar appears to be missing from the LPS, but substantial
(undetermined)
structure remains. Soybean presents an interesting
parallel with
bean (
P. vulgaris) in regard to LPS and
symbiosis. Both plants
form determinate nodules, and soybean forms
severely stunted pseudonodules
when inoculated with
B. japonicum mutants that lack O antigen
entirely (
44).
Conclusions about how closely the case of
B. elkanii SM1
parallels those of
R. etli CE166

and CE374, however,
await more definitive information about the LPS structures of
all three
mutants.
Possible biological roles of these LPS I structural features.
Some of the inferences from this work can be summed up in the following
hypotheses. Insufficient O antigen leads to complete blockage of
infection soon after infection starts (perhaps due to plant toxins that
abundant O antigen can prevent from penetrating to targets on the
rhizobial cell [14]). This role may be relatively independent of particular structure. However, certain other aspects of
the infection process are greatly facilitated by specific structural features of the LPS, possibly including a feature contributed by the
QuiN residue. Changes in these LPS features slow infection and,
thereby, nodule development and also lead to lower incidence of nodules
per infectible region of the root.
That subtle alterations in LPS structure slow infection suggests, as
one hypothesis, that infection requires structurally
specific
interactions between the bacterial LPS and plant receptors
on the
plasma membrane. Analogous interactions with animal cell
receptors have
been proposed as part of the activity of LPS in
certain bacterial
pathogens (
21). In developing nodules these
interactions
might direct the targeting of machinery for membrane
growth to the
sites at which the bacteria impinge directly on
the plant plasma
membrane, including the site at which the infection
thread is initiated
(
5) and, later, the tip of the infection
thread
(
30). Similar suggestions have been made previously
(
24,
44). The trifoliin A protein of clover roots has been
proposed
as a receptor of the LPS of
R. leguminosarum bv.
trifolii strains
(
12,
20). Interestingly, trifoliin A binds
at much higher
affinity to LPS containing QuiN and the binding is
inhibited by
QuiN (
20). It would be of interest to
investigate whether there
are LPS-binding proteins from bean that
interact preferentially
with
R. etli CE3 LPS containing QuiN
and whether such proteins
are associated with infection
threads.
 |
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
K.D.N. acknowledges the technical assistance of Valerie Neumann,
Tina Thorp, Kevin Barleben, and Jodie Box.
This work was supported by grants DE-FG02-98ER20307 from the U.S.
Department of Energy (to K.D.N.) and GM39583 from the National Institutes of Health (to R.W.C.) as well as DOE grant DE-FG09-93ER20097 to the CCRC.
 |
FOOTNOTES |
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of
Biology, Marquette University, P.O. Box 1881, Milwaukee, WI 53201-1881. Phone: (414) 288-1475. Fax: (414) 288-7357. E-mail:
dale.noel{at}marquette.edu.
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