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Journal of Bacteriology, December 2002, p. 6746-6749, Vol. 184, No. 23
0021-9193/02/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JB.184.23.6746-6749.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Low-Temperature-Induced Changes in Composition and Fluidity of Lipopolysaccharides in the Antarctic Psychrotrophic Bacterium Pseudomonas syringae
G. Seshu Kumar,
M. V. Jagannadham, and M. K. Ray*
Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad 500 007, India
Received 13 May 2002/
Accepted 28 August 2002

ABSTRACT
The Antarctic psychrotrophic bacterium
Pseudomonas syringae was more sensitive to polymyxin B at a lower (4°C) temperature
of growth than at a higher (22°C) temperature. The amount
of hydroxy fatty acids in the lipopolysaccharides (LPS) also
increased at the lower temperature. These changes correlated
with the increase in fluidity of the hydrophobic phase of lipopolysaccharide
aggregates in vitro.

TEXT
The outer membrane (OM) of gram-negative bacteria is asymmetric
due to the presence of lipopolysaccharides (LPS) exclusively
in the outer leaflet and phospholipids in the inner leaflet
of the bilayer membrane (
17). Accordingly, the hydrophobic interior
of the OM is mostly made up of penta- or hexa-acyl chains of
lipid A from LPS and the diacyl chains of phospholipids. The
packing density of the hydrocarbon chains in the LPS is higher
than that of phospholipids (
28). Chemically, LPS molecule generally
contains, apart from the hydrophobic lipid A, two distinct carbohydrate
components: an inner "core oligosaccharide" linked to the lipid
A and an outer "O-antigenic chain" of carbohydrate repeat units
that is linked to the "core" region (
19). The phosphate groups
present in the core oligosaccharides and lipid A of LPS bind
the divalent cations, such as Ca
2+ and Mg
2+, which probably
help in stabilizing the outer leaflet of the membrane. It is
also known that the LPS layer plays a major role in preventing
diffusion of molecules through the OM. The permeation of molecules
through the membrane is affected when the LPS leaflet is perturbed
by antibiotics such as polymyxin B or by mutations that alters
LPS structure (
17,
18,
19). The porin channels located in the
OM also regulate the entry of solutes by molecular sieving in
bacteria (
7,
17,
19), the exclusion limit being <600 to 700
Da as seen in
Escherichia coli. While these are very important,
little is known about the nature and importance of the hydrophobic
phase of LPS in regulation of the OM function, especially at
a lower temperature of growth.
The cytoplasmic membrane of bacteria tends to maintain a "homeoviscous state" for functioning at a lower temperature (27). Three kinds of alterations, namely, increase in the level of unsaturated fatty acids, decrease in the fatty acid chain length, and increase in branching of the chains (24, 25), are mainly known to maintain the "fluidity" or liquid crystalline state of the inner cytoplasmic membrane at lower temperatures. Although similar investigations on the change in OM at a low temperature have been conducted with some mesophilic bacteria (11, 16, 22, 23, 31, 36), such studies on cold-adapted bacteria do not appear to exist. For this reason, we have initiated some studies with the Antarctic psychrotrophic bacterium Pseudomonas syringae, which has the ability to grow at 0 to 4°C (20, 21, 26). In this report we examine the alteration in OM property and related compositional change in the LPS of low (4°C)- and high (22°C)-temperature-grown cells of P. syringae and correlate them with the fluidity of the hydrophobic core of LPS aggregates in vitro.
The Antarctic bacterium P. syringae Lz4w was maintained and grown in Antarctic bacterial medium, which contains Bacto Peptone (0.5%) and yeast extract (0.2%), at low and high temperatures (4° and 22°C, respectively) as reported earlier (26). The growth was monitored, when required, by measuring the turbidity of the culture (optical density at 600 nm [OD600]) on a Hitachi spectrophotometer (model no. 150-20). Unless otherwise mentioned, the experiments were carried out with the cells in the log phase of growth (OD600,
0.6).
Changes in the OM property of P. syringae.
To ascertain whether there is a change in the OM property during growth at a lower temperature (4°C), we measured the susceptibility of P. syringae to polymyxin B. This cationic antibiotic is known to interact with LPS and disrupt the OM by a self-promoted uptake mechanism (16, 18, 29). We observed that the MIC of polymyxin B (1 µg/ml) at 4°C increased to 4 µg/ml when P. syringae was grown at 22°C, indicating a change in the OM. The change was also monitored by measuring the fluorescent intensity of the probe N-phenyl-1-naphthylamine (NPN) in the presence of polymyxin B (14). The excitation and emission wavelengths for NPN were fixed at 356 and 410 nm, respectively, and the spectra were recorded at room temperature (22°C) in a Hitachi fluorescence spectrophotometer (model no. F-4010). The data (Fig. 1) indicate that NPN exhibited a higher fluorescent intensity with different concentrations of polymyxin B when the cells were grown at room temperature (4°C). A similar result was also observed in an independent assay method (8), in which the lysozyme-mediated lysis of cells was monitored by a drop in cellular turbidity at OD600. For example, under identical conditions in the presence of polymyxin B (6 µg/ml) and lysozyme (50 µg/ml), the initial OD600 (0.6) of the suspensions of 4°C- and 22°C-grown cells dropped to 0.14 and 0.35, respectively, in 1 h at room temperature. Thus, it appeared that the P. syringae had a growth temperature-induced alteration of the OM property.
Changes in the acyl chain composition of the LPS.
The LPS from low (4°C)- and high (22°C)-temperature-grown
cells of
P. syringae were isolated by aqueous phenol (
35) as
well as by the modified phenol-chloroform-light petroleum method
of Brade and Galanos (
1). The protease, DNase, and RNase digestions
of LPS and the final purification by ultracentrifugation were
carried out as described earlier (
21). The two procedures (
1,
35) yielded similar results showing both S- and R-type LPS (Fig.
2). The LPS isolated by a proteinase K digestion method (
9)
also produced similar profiles by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide
gel electrophoresis (data not shown). For subsequent analysis,
the fatty acids were prepared by hydrolysis of LPS in 4 M HCl
for 4 h, followed by a treatment in 1 M NaOH for 2 h, both at
100°C (
6,
13). The methyl esters of the fatty acids were
made (
15) and were analyzed by gas chromatography on a Hewlett-Packard
5890 Series II plus instrument with a 30-m-long HP-5 column
(fused 5% phenylmethyl silicone column with 0.32-mm inside diameter
and 0.25-µm film thickness) using nitrogen as the carrier
gas. The initial and final temperatures of the column were fixed
at 120 and 250
°C, respectively, with a ramping temperature
of 5
°C.
Table
1 shows that, at the lower temperature, there was an increased
amount of hydroxylated fatty acids compared to that of fatty
acids of LPS from higher (22°C)-temperature-grown cells.
The 3-OH C
10:0, 2-OH C
12:0, and 3-OH C
12:0 together represented
about 72% of the acyl chains as opposed to the 45% that was
observed in the LPS of 22°C-grown cells. Among the three
hydroxy fatty acids, the 3-OH C
10:0 and 3-OH C
12:0 constituted
the bulk amount and the amount of 2-OH C
12:0 remained relatively
unaltered. The hydroxy groups of these fatty acids probably
function in a manner analogous to that of the branched fatty
acids in phospholipid membrane in causing steric perturbations
in the hydrophobic core (
5) and thereby help maintain the homeoviscous
state of the OM at lower temperature.
Interestingly, it is also evident from Table
1 that the amount
of the unsaturated C
16:1 acyl chain was greater (23%) in 22°C-grown
cells than that in the low-temperature (4°C)- grown cells
(13%). This result is counterintuitive and in contrast to the
data available for mesophilic
E. coli,
Salmonella enterica serovar
Minnesota, and
Proteus mirabilis (
16,
23,
31,
36), where the
amount of palmitoleic acid (i.e.,
cis-

9C
16:1) in lipid A increases
at the expense of C
16:0 (in
P. mirabilis) and C
12:0 (in
E. coli and
S. enterica serovar Minnesota) at a lower temperature (

15°C)
of growth. However, a decrease in the C
16:1 acyl chain at the
lower growth temperature was observed earlier in
Yersinia enterocolitica (
34; quoted in reference
12).
In order to investigate the nature of linkage of the acyl chains, the ester-bound fatty acids were released from LPS by treatment with 0.25 M CH3ONa at 37°C for 15 h (13) and the fatty acid methyl esters were prepared as described above. The amide-linked fatty acids were cleaved by the silver oxide and silver trifluoromethane sulfonate method in a water-free petroleum ether at 40 to 60°C and were esterified in situ by methyl iodide as described earlier (36). The results indicated that the C16:0 and C16:1 fatty acids were N linked, whereas 3-OH C10:0, C12:0, and 2-OH C12:0 were ester linked in the LPS of cells grown at both temperatures (4° and 22°C). However, most of the 3-OH C12:0 was observed to be amide linked only in 4°C-grown cells. The peak related to the 3-OH C12:0 fatty acid in 22°C-grown cells was barely visible in the gas chromatogram.
Fluidity in the hydrophobic phase of LPS aggregates.
The LPS form macromolecular aggregates in vitro (2, 3, 33).The fluidity (order-disorder conformation) in the hydrocarbon chains of LPS aggregates was measured. The fluorescent dye pyrene, a probe for lipid fluidity (10, 32), was used. The pyrene monomers laterally diffuse in the membrane to form excimers, and the ease with which the excimers are formed from monomers reflects the fluidity of the hydrophobic phase, which can be assessed from the ratio of excimer to monomer. Figure 3 shows that the excimer/monomer ratio of pyrene is higher in LPS aggregates prepared from 4°C-grown cells than in aggregates from 22°C-grown cells. Thus, at the tested temperature (22°C), there is an indication that the LPS of low-temperature-grown cells have a more fluid environment in the hydrophobic interior than do those prepared from the high-temperature-grown cells.
Significance of changes in LPS at the low temperature of growth.
The lower growth temperature is expected to increase the fluidity
of the LPS in order to achieve the homeoviscous adaptation.
Indeed, with mesophilic members of
Enterobacteriaceae (
16,
22,
23,
31,
36), growth at 10 to 15°C presumably increases fluidity
by increasing the content of palmitoleic acid in LPS, apparently
by the induction of a specific LpxP transferase (
4). Our study
described in this paper showed that, in a facultative psychrophile
as well, the fluidity of the hydrophobic domain of LPS increased
in 4°C-grown cells as shown by the pyrene excimer assay.
However, unexpectedly, the LPS of these cells contained smaller
amounts of the main unsaturated fatty acid (C
16:1) and increased
amounts of hydroxylated fatty acids. The relationship of the
presence of hydroxylated fatty acid residues and the fluidity
remains a topic for further study. It was shown earlier that
the same strain of Antarctic
P. syringae produced, at a lower
growth temperature, LPS with lower phosphate content in the
core region (
21). The possible interaction between the lower
fluidity and the altered phosphate content on the survival of
bacteria, for example in the presence of antibacterial agents,
again remains to be studied.
In conclusion, our data suggest that the increased hydroxylated fatty acids in LPS of P. syringae might have a role in the observed changes of the OM at 4°C. The understanding of the exact nature of structural changes in lipid A and other parts of the LPS in this bacterium might throw new light in the future on the importance of the OM in the physiology of highly cold-adapted bacteria from Antarctica.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank R. Nagaraj (Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology,
Hyderabad, India) and the anonymous reviewers for suggestions
to improve the manuscript.
The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), New Delhi, India, supports the research in M.K.R.'s laboratory.

FOOTNOTES
* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Uppal Rd., Hyderabad 500 007, India. Phone: 00-91-40-7192512. Fax: 00-91-40-7160591. E-mail:
malay{at}www.ccmb.res.in.

Present address: Complex Carbohydrate Research Center, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602-4712. 

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Journal of Bacteriology, December 2002, p. 6746-6749, Vol. 184, No. 23
0021-9193/02/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JB.184.23.6746-6749.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
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