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J. Bacteriol. doi:10.1128/JB.01260-06
Copyright (c) 2006, American Society for Microbiology and/or the Listed Authors/Institutions. All Rights Reserved.

The role of Gne and GalE in the virulence of Aeromonas hydrophila serotype O34

Departamento de Microbiología, Facultad de Biología, Universidad de Barcelona, Diagonal 645, 08071 Barcelona, Spain

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: jtomas {at}ub.edu.

	Abstract

The mesophilic Aeromonas hydrophila AH-3 (serotype O34) strain shows two different UDP-hexose epimerases in their genomes: GalE (EC 3.1.5.2) and Gne (EC 3.1.5.7). Similar homologues were detected in the different mesophilic Aeromonas strains tested. GalE shows only UDP-Galactose 4-epimerase activity while Gne is able to perform a dual activity (mainly UDP-N-acetyl-galactosamine 4-epimerase and also UDP-Galactose 4-epimerase). We studied the activity in vitro of both epimerases and also in vivo through the LPS structure of A. hydrophila gne mutants, A. hydrophila galE mutants, A. hydrophila galE-gne double mutants, and independently complemented mutants with both genes. Furthermore, the enzymatic activity in vivo, which renders different LPS structures on the mentioned A. hydrophila mutant strains or the complemented mutants, allowed us to confirm a clear relationship between the virulence of these strains and the presence/absence of the O34-antigen LPS.

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