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Full Structure of the Lipopolysaccharide of Pseudomonas aeruginosa Immunotype 5

O. V. Bystrova1,2, B. Lindner2, H. Moll2, N. A. Kocharova1, Y. A. Knirel1,2*, U. Zahringer2, and G. B. Pier3

1Zelinsky Institute of Organic Chemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences, Leninsky pr. 47, Moscow 119991, Russia; fax: (7-095) 135-5328; E-mail: knirel@ioc.ac.ru

2Research Center Borstel, Center for Medicine and Biosciences, Parkallee 22, Borstel, D-23845, Germany

3Channing Laboratory, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 181 Longwood Ave., Boston, MA 02115, USA

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.

Received May 16, 2003
The lipopolysaccharide (LPS) of the opportunistic human pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa immunotype 5 was delipidated by mild acid hydrolysis, and the products were separated by high-performance anion-exchange chromatography and analyzed by ESI MS and NMR spectroscopy. LPS species of three types were found, including those with an unsubstituted core and the core substituted with one O-polysaccharide repeating unit or with an O-polysaccharide of a variable number of repeating units. The core region is highly phosphorylated, the major species containing two monophosphate groups and one ethanolamine diphosphate group. Based on these and published data on the O-polysaccharide structure, the full structure of the LPS of P. aeruginosa immunotype 5 was established.
KEY WORDS: lipopolysaccharide, core oligosaccharide, repeating unit, O-antigen, ethanolamine diphosphate, Pseudomonas aeruginosa