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J. Bacteriol., Sep 1997, 5521-5533, Vol 179, No. 17
MG Sunshine, BW Gibson, JJ Engstrom, WA Nichols, BD Jones and MA Apicella
The htrB gene product of Haemophilus influenzae contributes to the toxicity
of the lipooligosaccharide. The htrB gene encodes a 2-keto-3-
deoxyoctulosonic acid-dependent acyltransferase which is responsible for
myristic acid substitutions at the hydroxy moiety of lipid A beta-
hydroxymyristic acid. Mass spectroscopic analysis has demonstrated that
lipid A from an H. influenzae htrB mutant is predominantly tetraacyl and
similar in structure to lipid IV(A), which has been shown to be nontoxic in
animal models. We sought to construct a Salmonella typhimurium htrB mutant
in order to investigate the contribution of htrB to virulence in a
well-defined murine typhoid model of animal pathogenesis. To this end, an
r- m+ galE mutS recD strain of S. typhimurium was constructed (MGS-7) and
used in inter- and intrastrain transduction experiments with both coliphage
P1 and Salmonella phage P22. The Escherichia coli htrB gene containing a
mini-Tn10 insertion was transduced from E. coli MLK217 into S. typhimurium
MGS-7 via phage P1 and subsequently via phage P22 into the virulent
Salmonella strain SL1344. All S. typhimurium transductants showed
phenotypes similar to those described for the E. coli htrB mutant. Mass
spectrometric analysis of the crude lipid A fraction from the
lipopolysaccharide of the S. typhimurium htrB mutant strain showed that for
the dominant hexaacyl form, a lauric acid moiety was lost at one position
on the lipid A and a palmitic acid moiety was added at another position;
for the less abundant heptaacyl species, the lauric acid was replaced with
palmitoleic acid.
Copyright © 1997, American Society for Microbiology
Mutation of the htrB gene in a virulent Salmonella typhimurium strain by intergeneric transduction: strain construction and phenotypic characterization
Department of Microbiology, The University of Iowa, Iowa City 52242, USA.
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