1887

Abstract

Summary

The susceptibility of 12 different strains (representing nine species) to the bactericidal effect of human serum complement was investigated. When grown in nutrient-rich proteose peptone-yeast extract medium, all 12 strains were, to varying degrees, sensitive to serum. However, when grown in Van Tassell and Wilkins’s minimal medium, six of the 12 strains became markedly more serum resistant. Five of these six strains became totally resistant to serum when grown in heat-inactivated (56°C, 30 min) sheep serum. By Percoll discontinuous density centrifugation and light microscopy, the ratio of bacteria with large and small capsules was found to vary with the growth medium used. Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) was extracted with aqueous phenol after growth in the three media. Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) and silver staining of the LPS showed some differences in LPS profiles in all strains tested. Therefore, variation of growth conditions results in alterations of both the expression of surface structures and, in some cases, sensitivity to serum. The biochemical basis for these changes requires further investigation.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journal/jmm/10.1099/00222615-41-1-45
1994-07-01
2024-04-25
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/jmm/41/1/medmicro-41-1-45.html?itemId=/content/journal/jmm/10.1099/00222615-41-1-45&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

References

  1. Namavar F, Theunissen EBM, Verweij-Van Vught AMJJ. et al. Epidemiology of the Bacteroides fragilis group in the colonic flora in 10 patients with colonic cancer. J Med Microbiol 1989; 29:171–176
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Gorbach SL, Bartlett JG. Anaerobic infections. N Engl J Med 1974; 290:1177–1184 1237–1245–1289–1294
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Duerden BI. The isolation and identification of Bacteroides spp. from the normal human faecal flora. J Med Microbiol 1980; 13:69–78
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Lindberg AA, Berthold P, Nord CE, Weintraub A. Encapsulated strains of Bacteroides fragilis in clinical specimens. Med Microbiol Immunol 1979; 167:29–36
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Onderdonk AB, Kasper DL, Cisneros RL, Bartlett JG. The capsular polysaccharide of Bacteroides fragilis as a virulence factor: comparison of the pathogenic potential of encapsulated and unencapsulated strains. J Infect Dis 1977; 136:82–89
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Connolly JC, McLean C, Tabaqchali S. The effect of capsular polysaccharide and lipopolysaccharide of Bacteroides fragilis on polymorph function and serum killing. J Med Microbiol 1984; 17:259–271
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Poxton IR, Brown R. Immunochemistry of the surface carbohydrate antigens of Bacteroides fragilis and definition of a common antigen. J Gen Microbiol 1986; 132:2475–2481
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Patrick S, Reid JH. Separation of capsulate and non-capsulate Bacteroides fragilis on a discontinuous density gradient. J Med Microbiol 1983; 16:239–241
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Patrick S, Reid JH, Coffey A. Capsulation of in vitro and in vivo grown Bacteroides species. J Gen Microbiol 1986; 132:1099–1109
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Reid JH, Patrick S, Tabaqchali S. Immunochemical characterization of a polysaccharide antigen of Bacteroides fragilis with an IgM monoclonal antibody. J Gen Microbiol 1987; 133:171–179
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Lutton DA, Patrick S, Crockard AD. et al. Flow cytometric analysis of within-strain variation in polysaccharide expression by Bacteroides fragilis by use of murine monoclonal antibodies. J Med Microbiol 1991; 35:229–237
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Taylor PW. Bactericidal and bacteriolytic activity of serum against gram-negative bacteria. Microbiol Rev 1983; 47:46–83
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Crokaert F, Lismont M-J, van der Linden M-P, Yourassowsky E. Determination of complement-mediated serum bactericidal activity against gram-negative bacteria. Rev Med Microbiol 1992; 3:241–247
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Frank MM, Joiner K, Hammer C. The function of antibody and complement in the lysis of bacteria. Rev Infect Dis 1987; 9:Supplement 5S537–S545
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Leying H, Suerbaum S, Kroll H-P, Stahl D, Opferkuch W. The capsular polysaccharide is a major determinant of serum resistance in K-1 -positive blood culture isolates of Escherichia coli. Infect Immun 1990; 58:222–227
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Casciato DA, Rosenblatt JE, Bluestone R, Goldberg LS, Finegold SM. Susceptibility of isolates of Bacteroides to the bactericidal activity of normal human serum. J Infect Dis 1979; 140:109–113
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Rotimi VO, Eke PI. The bactericidal action of human serum on Bacteroides species. J Med Microbiol 1984; 18:355–363
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Namavar F, Verweij-Van Vught AMJJ, MacLaren DM. A study of the candidate virulence factors of Bacteroides fragilis. J Gen Microbiol 1991; 137:1431–1435
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Reid JH, Patrick S. Phagocytic and serum killing of capsulate and non-capsulate Bacteroides fragilis. J Med Microbiol 1984; 17:247
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Smith H. Pathogenicity and the microbe in vivo. J Gen Microbiol 1990; 136:377–393
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Nelson D, Bathgate AJ, Poxton IR. Monoclonal antibodies as probes for detecting lipopolysaccharide expression on Escherichia coli from different growth conditions. J Gen Microbiol 1991; 137:2741–2751
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Holbrook WP, Duerden BI, Deacon AG. The classification of Bacteroides melaninogenicus and related species. J Appl Bacteriol 1977; 42:259–273
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Van Tassell RL, Wilkins TD. Isolation of auxotrophs of Bacteroides fragilis. Can J Microbiol 1978; 24:1619–1621
    [Google Scholar]
  24. Hudson L, Hay FC. Antibody effector systems. In Practical immunology, 2nd edn. Oxford: Blackwell Scientific Publications; 1980142–145
    [Google Scholar]
  25. Fomsgaard A, Shand GH, Freudenberg MA. et al. Antibodies from chronically infected cystic fibrosis patients react with lipopolysaccharides extracted by new micromethods from all serotypes of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. APMIS 1993; 101101–112
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Westphal O, Luderitz . Chemische erforschung von lipopolysacchariden gramnegativer bakterien. Angew Chem 1954; 66:407–417
    [Google Scholar]
  27. Laemmli UK. Cleavage of structural proteins during the assembly of the head protein of bacteriophage T4. Nature 1970; 227:680–685
    [Google Scholar]
  28. Tsai CM, Frasch CE. A sensitive silver stain for detecting lipopolysaccharide in polyacrylamide gels. Anal Biochem 1982; 119:115–119
    [Google Scholar]
  29. Hancock IC, Poxton IR. In Bacterial cell surface techniques.. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons; 1988281
    [Google Scholar]
  30. Maskell JP. The resolution of bacteroides lipopolysaccharides by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. J Med Microbiol 1991; 34:253–257
    [Google Scholar]
  31. Hitchcock PJ, Brown TM. Morphological heterogeneity among Salmonella lipopolysaccharide chemotypes in silver-stained polyacrylamide gels. J Bacteriol 1983; 154:269–277
    [Google Scholar]
http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/journal/jmm/10.1099/00222615-41-1-45
Loading
/content/journal/jmm/10.1099/00222615-41-1-45
Loading

Data & Media loading...

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error